Harry Potter and the Really Bad Plotline
by Bernard and Spinach
Summary: Harry Potter thinks life is getting back to normal; the Dark Lord is out to kill him again. However, events at school soon show him that Seventh Year is going to be...interesting. Includes the Final Battle, Harry's One True Love and LOTS of insanity! (Th
1. Concerning Harry

**Concerning Harry**

Harry's 16th birthday should have been a huge event in his life. A sort of coming of age; he knows his destiny and he is old enough to cope with it. However, in reality, it was all rather nondescript. As was the rest of the year. He had been forced to stay at the Dursley's for the entire summer, much to their chagrin, in order to gain the maximum protection from his aunt's blood. And though he had been waiting for the big attack all year, it hadn't come. Perhaps this had something to do with almost all the Death Eaters being securely locked up. He'd never thought of that; it hadn't been an issue in his first, second or fourth year, so he really didn't see why it had become a problem in his sixth. This lack of death threats was not a release for him; Harry had no excuse not to buckle down and do his homework: no Dark Lords to thwart, suspicious animals about the place, or any reason to go wandering around the school in the dead of night to add a little adventure to his year.

However, it is now Harry's Seventh and Final Year. And yes, that deserved to be capitalised because it signifies the End. That's right; this Christmas is the last chance Harry has to get Dumbledore some nice, woollen socks. Oh, and there's going to be that whole final battle with the most evil wizard of all time. Yes, Voldemort is back trying to kill Harry. Again. This may not seem like the kind of thing a rising political power would want to do, especially when they continually fail to achieve their aim. Just accept it – you did for the first four books.


	2. The Unexpected Party

Chapter 1: The Unexpected Party  
  
Harry Potter woke up at 8am on the 31st of July. He had been 17 for 8 hours without realising it. He stretched, got out of bed and shuffled over to the mirror, just to check that his reflection hadn't changed since the last time he had looked for the purposes of the narrator having an easy way to introduce a description of his appearance.  
  
Funnily enough, it had. Harry stared at his reflection and saw a skinny boy with jet black hair and blue eyes staring black. But blue is the least witchy colour for eyes to possibly be, Harry objected to himself before realising that, as a main character, it was expected that he have blue eyes. Besides, his mother, the eyes of whom he had often been told he was in possession of, must have finally wanted her eyes back, so he had been forced to actually use his own eyes.  
  
This may seem strange to you or me, and, actually, it did to Harry as well, but Harry Potter was not an ordinary boy. Firstly, there was a series of successful movies based on an even more successful series of books that chronicled his life. Secondly, he was destined to either kill, or be killed by Lord Voldemort, a very powerful and evil man. Oh yeah, and he was a wizard – bet you didn't know that (this bet is only valid if you have been hiding in a cave for the past few years, and even then, it has to be a very remote cave).  
  
This is normally the point where there is a synopsis of the previous years of Harry's life. However, as you have been driven to reading fanfictions about Harry Potter, we can safely assume you can recite all five books from memory, which kind of does away with the need to explain Harry's past. At least you can still be superior to those lost souls who actually write fanfics.  
  
Harry sighed as he thought of the fun and action-packed day that he was probably going to have – he might even get a toothpick! Having this exciting event to look forward to, Harry made his way downstairs. As he approached the kitchen –  
  
"Happy birthday!" many voices cried out and he noticed that there were balloons decorating the hallway. Surely the Dursleys hadn't gone to all this trouble? No, as it turned out, they hadn't, although, in Mrs. Dursley's opinion, a paper clip attached to a postcard was more than generous to a boy who they fed and housed out of the goodness of their hearts. Oh...alright. The fear of screaming, red envelopes might have had something to do with the fact that he wasn't starving on the streets.  
  
Harry soon realised that the Dursleys, unless it was some kind of new fashion they had got into without him noticing, did not have bright red hair.  
  
"Listen, mate," Ron said, before Harry had a chance, "Some of You- Know-Who's followers have managed to escape. Dumbledore thinks he's gonna attack you again. You should be at Hogwarts."  
  
"Dumbledore thinks I'll be safer at Hogwarts?" he exclaimed, shocked. What happened to that blood protection thing? Were the people in front of him Death Eaters who had taken Polyjuice Potion?  
  
That was another unusual thing about Harry – paranoid by the age of 17. Tragic. Most people would have to take hard core drugs to achieve this.  
  
"Are you a Death Eater who has taken Polyjuice Potion?" asked Harry, just to make sure this wasn't the case. Obviously, if it was a Death Eater who had taken Polyjuice Potion, then he/she could take three courses of action. They might be caught off guard by this question and answering in the affirmative before remembering that they were in disguise. The might be so impressed by Harry's accurate suspicions, that they would confirm them out of sheer respect. Finally, they may reason that Harry was already onto them, so they might as well give up before their futile attempts to gain his trust became embarrassing.  
  
"No," answered Hermione, appearing from behind Ron. It was strange that Hermione had stayed with Ron over the summer for the previous three years (she did in the summer leading up to their sixth year as well, for reasons we won't tell you, just to add a slight hint of mystery). You would think that her parents would question her motives for wanting to sleep over at a boy's house. You would also think her parents, who don't see her for the rest of the year, because whenever there is an exciting mystery/adventure, which there always is, she stays at Hogwarts for Christmas, might want to actually spend time with their daughter. As well as that, you may think that Ginny would get sick of sharing her room with Hermione – she's Ron's friend after all, not Ginny's.  
  
"Ok," said Harry – "no" was good enough for him – it didn't feature in any of the three possible reactions of a Death Eater. Hermione expanded anyway –  
  
"The thing is, last time we left you on your own for most of the summer, you had major stresses at regular intervals when you were finally back among us. Dumbledore investigated the possible causes for these fits of anger, and concluded that the most likely reason is PMT. Now, you can't just go round turning into a girl, mail because Harrietta is a ridiculous name, but also because you live at a boarding school, which only has boy and girl dormitories and no transsexual dormitories. There is a definite link between the PMT and the being left alone, so by reducing the time you are left with the Dursleys, we can hopefully slow, or even stop your conversion into a girl.  
  
After this long and, in Harry's view, rather disturbing explanation, all the other Weasleys piled out of the kitchen to wish him a happy birthday.  
  
"But how did you get in?" Harry asked after greeting them all.  
  
"Magic," Mr Weasley replied, which was a completely inadequate response as the Weasleys barely ever travelled without magic. However, to actually tell Harry how they did get there would be a waste of time, because, as everyone knows, every year, a new method of transport is introduced which Harry has never heard of, but somehow, Hermione has. This particular mode of transport will not be used again and therefore does not require explanation (but does require a paragraph to explain why it does not require explanation). It is sufficient to know that they are travelling to Hogwarts using a portkey.  
  
After an extremely nutritious breakfast of birthday cake, Mr Weasley set up the portkey for Ginny, Harry, Ron and Hermione. They gathered around the portkey – a banana skin – picked it up and WHOOSH! They found themselves in the Gryffindor common room. After picking themselves up off the floor (and Hermione throwing the banana skin in the bin because she's the only one with any consideration for house elves), they decided to go find Dumbledore. This didn't take very long because he was, conveniently, at that moment, talking to the Fat Lady.  
  
"You arrived here safely then," Dumbledore said, in what Harry thought was a very distracted tone. This worried Harry – Dumbledore would only be distracted if Voldemort was doing something bad (and yes, that last adjective is entirely necessary, as Voldemort might well be doing something relaxing, like stroking a fluffy, white cat).  
  
"I can organise trips to Hogsmeade or to Diagon Alley if you get bored. I just wanted you here so I could keep an eye on you – make sure that Voldemort doesn't get you..." he explained. Then, he added, completely unnecessarily, to Harry's mind, "and, of course, your little oestrogen problem, Harry." Then he walked away again, muttering to himself.  
  
"Did he seem a bit, well, odd to you?" Hermione asked, and then, just to clarify, "More odd than normal, I mean."  
  
"Yeah," replied Harry. He turned to the picture and said, "Fat Lady, can I ask you a question?"  
  
"It's my glands," the Fat Lady answered heavily, "the stupid artist painted them wrong and I just bloat f I eat the tiniest thing." She paused, "It would make me feel so much better if you called me Horizontally Over-Endowed Lady..."  
  
"Right," said Harry, eyeing the large slice of chocolate cake in her hand, "actually, that wasn't what I was going to ask. I was just wondering what you were talking to the headmaster about."  
  
"Sherbet Lemons," the Horizontally Over-Endowed Lady said in a slightly huffy tone.  
  
"Come on, you can tell us," Ron urged – although he knew that Dumbledore had a fondness for sherbet lemons, he didn't believe that he would actually discuss said fondness with paintings. Then, miraculously, for the first and last time in his life, he realised why someone was reacting badly, and said, "He didn't mean he doesn't care about your glands..."  
  
But she wouldn't say any more. 


	3. Three is Company

Disclaimer: These characters aren't ours because if they were, first we'd be either enormously rich or extremely pissed off that we weren't and second, we wouldn't be likely to take the piss out of our own characters.  
  
Three is Company  
  
They all go to Diagon Alley to buy their school things, possibly to Hogsmeade as well, where they have pointless but humorous escapades, or just boring escapades which allow a little more exploration of character. Ron and Hermione probably fall out at some point. Term starts, the sorting happens, there is a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher (big surprise there). It is Tonks, simply because making up a new character would take too much effort.  
  
No-one cares about this section of the story. In fact, some of us would even say that reading out a list of names in alphabetical order, while a piece of cloth randomly shouted the name of a house in between each name was boring. Perhaps this is why Harry has only attended two sortings, or perhaps this has something to do with having to make up a new song.  
  
One thing we can be grateful for is that there is no train ride necessary this year. The Hogwarts Express is one of the great mysteries of the Harry Potter books, right up there with why four supposedly intelligent people would name their school after mysterious lumps of dead skin on pigs.  
  
To have a train, there needs to be railway tracks, and I'm sure that one of the railway companies, at one point during the long existence of the Hogwarts Express, would have noticed railway tracks going directly from King's Cross to some place which they never got to because they suddenly remembered they had left the oven on, or something. And if the railway tracks had anti-muggle spells on them, wouldn't someone notice that there was a mysterious line of land and no-one knew what it contained? Wouldn't the Ordnance Survey and other map drawing company people notice? It would be written about in tour guides – a section of England which no-one could get into. There might even be competitions on children's TV to see if someone could get into there, and if they could they would get a free t- shirt. What would children suddenly remember? That they hadn't turned off their plastic oven? And if this much magic went into disguising the train, why not just use a magical method of transport? WHY?!?!?!  
  
I'm getting off topic.  
  
Anyway, there may well be a seemingly random and pointless escapade, hidden somewhere in this section, which actually has relevance later on. Watch out for these, and remember, Hermione somehow knows everything. To save you the effort of sorting out the meaningful events from the pointless ones, the following event is meaningful.  
  
"Oh look," Draco Malfoy drawled, because he knew of no other way to speak. "It's Potty, Weasel and the Mudblood." Pansy Parkinson, nearby, swooned at the ultimate wit and originality Draco had used in coming up with these hilarious nicknames.  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione had been on their way to charms. Unfortunately, Ron is uncommonly easy to anger, so even talking about supposedly neutral topics, like pencil sharpeners, one has to be careful about phrasing in case he takes it the wrong way. For example 'pencil sharpeners are really useful' can easily be seen as a threat, perhaps to sharpen his fingers, or maybe he could take it as a derogatory comparison to himself, as he is not as useful as a pencil sharpener.  
  
This is another strange thing about Harry Potter – the use of quills and parchment. The reason that no muggles use either quills or parchment is because they are, in fact, inferior to biros and normal paper; this, amazingly, is the reason they are no longer in use. It's a bit like Harry suddenly saying 'forasmuch as' instead of 'but' simply because he's a wizard.  
  
Getting back to Ron being uncommonly easy to anger, you can always tell if he's really mad because of the colour of his ears. In fact, Ron's whole emotional range, limited as it is, can be determined by the shade that his ears go; if he's embarrassed, it's a light pink, but if he's furious, they go all the way to crimson.  
  
Harry is slightly different – he can usually withstand abuse, common and often justified as it is. But, (sorry, I mean, 'Forasmuch as this is true,') Draco Malfoy was a special case, and Harry utilised most excuses to fight him.  
  
Hermione sighed as she watched the radiation from Ron's ears go down in frequency (this is Hermione – she's got to have a nerdy way of saying 'got redder', even if she hasn't done physics since she was 10). She was never sure why the got so angry the whole time; she had slapped Malfoy once, but that was once! In seven years! Not every five minutes that she spent in his company! Actually, to be fair, they could sometimes hold back their anger for 6 minute stretches.  
  
"You make one more crack about my family/me being poor/my scruffy personal appearance (delete as appropriate), and I'll kill you!" Ron shouted.  
  
"But I haven't said any of those things yet!" Malfoy protested after a stunned silence. Protesting in a drawl is quite a feat, but Malfoy managed it.  
  
"Yeah," said Ron, simmering, his ears magenta, "but you were going to."  
  
Draco could think of nothing to say to this, because he probably had been about to drawl some snide comment on one of the three topics Ron had just mentioned. Instead, he turned to Harry, pulled out his want, pointed it at Harry and laughed sinisterly. Obviously, these happened in chronological order, because no-one has the co-ordination to do all of them at the same time.  
  
"Wait," Harry said, pathetically, "I don't understand. I thought you were insulting Ron, not trying to kill me."  
  
"It's the customary fight scene, Draco drawled, exasperated, "I can't fight Ron – he only exists for comic relief. I have to fight you."  
  
"He's got a point, you know," Ron agreed.  
  
Just then, Filch ran up to them. "No fighting in the corridors!" he shouted triumphantly. "I'll see to it that you're hung upside-down in chains for this!"  
"That would be so much more threatening if you hadn't already failed to do it several times," Harry commented.  
  
"Yeah," Ron continued. "As we know you can't actually do anything to us, why don't you at least threaten something more gruesome, like chopping our fingers off and forcing us to eat them?"  
  
"Or giving us third degree burns in sensitive areas?" Harry added, before turning to the younger readers, I mean, students, and assuring them, "By sensitive areas, I of course meant the face and nothing else at all."  
  
Filch stalked off after this, muttering to himself about how kids today are never satisfied with they had and asking the world in general what had happened to the good old days of mild sadism?  
  
"Right," said Harry, "so we're fighting because I'm the protagonist and you're the antagonist?" Draco nodded. Harry, who had only learned that the protagonist was the main character and the antagonist was the one who made the protagonist's life difficult a few days ago, was annoyed that no-one had mentioned something about his impressive use of vocabulary.  
  
While he was pondering this, Draco hit him with a disarmament charm – 'Expelliaramus!' Harry, caught completely by surprise, was unable to do anything. Draco also seemed surprised, as if he hadn't expected the spell to work. He summoned Harry's wand and advanced menacingly on Harry.  
  
"What are you going to do – kill me?" Harry asked. Draco didn't reply, but when he was about two metres away from Harry, he chucked his wand back at him.  
  
"Oops!" he drawled, loudly, turning towards Crabbe and Goyle. "How strange – an involuntary muscle spasm in my arm has inadvertently allowed Harry to regain his wand. Well I am annoyed about that, because it definitely wasn't deliberate." He pronounced each word very carefully, as if to make sure that neither Crabbe nor Goyle missed anything he said. "What a shame," he continued in the same clearly-pronounced, loud drawl, "it is time for class so I do not have time to regain Potter's wand, which would have rectified my completely accidental muscle spasm." He paused, but, seeing that people still looked suspicious, he shouted "Mudblood!" at Granger and ran off.

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Hoped u liked it despite random long rants about trains and such things. If so, review and tell us. If not, review anyway, coz we have only got a grand total of one review so far, which makes us very depressed.  
  
Here is a review song (to the tune of the Phones 4 You jingle (I don't care that probably no-one but English people know this jingle, and even then, only sad ones who watch too much TV))  
  
To all our readers:

_This is a song from me to you, _

_JK Rowling, please don't sue, _

_That goes for her lawyers too, _

_And the rest of you – please review!  
  
Review, right now, _

_You know that you want to!_

_ Next chapter only comes _

_If you review!  
_  
(and a little rhyming couplet to finish it off)

_Actually, this is not true, _

_But please review.  
_  
Ahem...


	4. A Shortcut to Alcoholism

Disclaimer: These characters are not ours...if they were, the books wouldn't be so popular.  
  
Shortcut to Alcoholism  
  
This slur on Hermione's parentage had everyone worked up for days. Ron's ears turned a definite scarlet whenever he and Malfoy were in the same room. Handily, this situation cropped up at every meal time, which eliminated the problem of cold food for those surrounding Ron. It was while Harry was toasting a marshmallow on the veritable oven that was Ron's ear that he had a revelation.  
  
"Ron, I've just thought of something," he said, getting so excited that he dropped the gooey lump of half-melted marshmallow on Ron's shoulder.  
  
Ron was far too busy grumbling about slimy-gits-whose-Death-Eater- parents-were-far-worse-than-a-couple-of-Muggles-could-ever-be to even notice the hot, sticky thing currently sliding down his shoulder, slug- like, leaving a trail of marshmallow behind it.  
  
"Oh no! I've just ruined your robes!" exclaimed Harry, proving he was a true Gryffindor, by facing his mistakes head on (in other words, very stupid).  
  
"Who cares?" replied Ron angrily. "Malfoy calls Hermione a M... a bad word, and all you can think of is my robes! Besides," he added as an afterthought, "we are wizards." With a flick of his wand, he performed a quick vanishing spell.  
  
"We're also SEVENTEEN. How can you hope to impress girls and..." Harry paused in thought, "do other 17-year-old things that we do all the time, if you sit there unconcerned, covered in marshmallow?"  
  
"But I don't want to impress any girls," Ron said, hurriedly, unable to stop himself glancing at Hermione. "I don't obviously fancy ANYONE in this school." He glanced at Hermione again, his ears trying to be both crimson and an embarrassed pink simultaneously. This resolved itself by having one ear of each colour.  
  
"Well I think that vanishing charm was enough to impress any girl," said Hermione shyly, twirling her hair around her fingers.  
  
Ron's ears tried to convey just how embarrassed he was, gave up, and turned blue in exasperation. People reluctantly withdrew their warming food, unwilling to see the end of such a great heater.  
  
Hermione, meanwhile, tried to understand just why she was behaving so oddly around Ron. Being the Girl who Knows Everything, she soon figured it out. (That's right: the author needed a way of removing Ron's role as a heater so he and Harry could have a private discussion.)  
  
"I've got to go to the Library," said Hermione, because this was her response to everything, and rushed off.  
  
This left Harry and Ron to have a private discussion (the rest of the Gryffindors were listening to a touching eulogy on Ron's ears).  
  
"Getting back to my original point," whispered Harry, after shedding a single tear for their tragic loss. "We've been sitting around getting upset about Malfoy calling Hermione a name. At 17, surely we should get over such childish grudges and act our age.  
  
"You mean go out pub crawling, get unbelievably pissed, and possibly high, and hope to wake up the next morning in bed with a random woman who we've never seen before in our lives?"  
  
"Precisely."  
  
So the two boys made a plan for the next Hogsmeade weekend: go out pub crawling, get unbelievably pissed, and possibly high, and hope to wake up the next morning in bed with a random woman who they had never seen before in their lives.  
  
"Except for the random woman bit," amended Ron quickly. "Not that I'm secretly harbouring non-platonic feelings for anyone." He looked around for Hermione so that he could 'unobviously' glance at her, realised she was in the Library, then flushed pink anyway.  
  
Harry thanked Merlin for Ron's easy-to-provoke emotions, because people were nervously approaching them holding ice creams, dying to test out Ron's capacity as a freezer. Besides, blue ears really clash with orange hair.

  
  
That was how Ron and Harry found themselves at the Hog's Head with shot glasses of firewhiskey sitting in front of them. They stared at the firewhiskey, at each other, and then back to the drink, neither wanting to be the first to find out how much (or how little) alcohol it would take to get them singing at the top of their voices while dancing on the tables.  
  
"You know..." said Harry slowly, "Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea..."  
  
There was a heavy pause. Not quite a ton, but getting there.  
  
"It could get back to school," Ron continued for him, "that we've been out drinking."  
  
"We could get into serious trouble!" hastily agreed Harry. "And you really can't tell who might be in here spying on us."  
  
This was their cue to look around the dark interior of the Hog's Head at the assortment of hooded witches and wizards. Among them, to the boy's great surprise (OK. To Ron's great surprise and Harry's increasing paranoia) sat...  
  
"Winky?" Harry and Ron said together.  
  
The house elf was indeed seated at a nearby table, looking very pleased with herself – despite the incredibly annoying way she was introduced to the scene. Seated across from her was a hooded stranger, conferring with her in a low pitched whisper.  
  
"Winky is not sure," squeaked the elf, her efforts at lowering her voice completely failing.  
  
"Let's get closer," whispered Harry. "That's probably a Death Eater convincing Winky to put some sort of potion into our food."  
  
Ron sighed, and reminded himself to ask Madame Pomfrey to up Harry's medicine again. Nevertheless, they moved towards the table in time to hear the mysterious figure finish a sentence.  
  
"...and all of the Butterbeer you could drink"  
  
The stranger didn't get a chance to say more because at that moment, Hermione entered with a great shout – "Winky!"  
  
Harry and Ron spun to face their friend. She was dragging Dobby, who appeared to be holding a bag full of socks.  
  
"Thank Merlin you found her!" Hermione hugged Harry in gratitude, and then vaguely patted Ron on the head. "Dobby and I were just discussing the possibility of only buying one of a pair of socks with the shop assistant when we discovered that she'd disappeared."  
  
"Wonder why she did that," Ron muttered.  
  
Fortunately, Harry was talking over him. "I knew it! She sneaked off to plot against us with strangers!"  
  
"Is he still taking his potion?" whispered Hermione to Ron.  
  
"Yeah. I think he might need a stronger dose. But there was somebody talking to Winky."  
  
"What did they say?" inquired Hermione, affronted. If other people were going to go around talking to house elves, what was the point of her beloved S.P.E.W.?  
  
"Something about drinking lots of Butterbeer."  
  
"Ah," said Hermione, her mistrust in human kind restored. She glanced over towards Winky and gasped. Muttering to herself, she acted out some rather random gestures which, perhaps, if we had bothered to write out the pointless, or as it turned out, not so pointless after all, but humorous escapades that had occurred in the previous chapter, would not have been quite so irrelevant.  
  
"What?" asked Ron, bemused, as she methodically re-enacted brushing her teeth. (In case you aren't quite as obsessive as Spinach is, then this is a reference to HP 4 when Hermione keeps running her hand through her hair while trying to figure things out, which is to do with the beetle – Rita Skeeter – being in her hair at the lake...she's read that book way too many times to be healthy)  
  
"I've just figured it out! I should rush to the Library at this very moment to confirm my suspicions."  
  
Harry and Ron looked expectantly at her; she looked back at them. There was another pause. Finally –  
  
"Why are you still here?" asked Harry.  
  
"Well, I still have quite an important part to play in the rest of this scene." Hermione took one look at their faces, remembered that because they were not Boys who Knew Everything, they couldn't be expected to realise that they were, in fact, characters in a story. She thought all of this very fast, so was able to quickly recover by saying, "I mean, there aren't any carriages back to Hogwarts for a few hours."  
  
There was an awkward silence. This was quite difficult in the Hog's Head, as there were many other, rather boisterous customers. But they managed it somehow. (In this particular case, by performing a quick Silencio charm.)  
  
Harry finally grew bored of the silence and cursed the quick thinking that had made Ron cast the Silencio charm.  
  
The resulting Jelly-Legs curse afflicting Ron effectively dispelled all of the tension.  
  
"Sorry," apologised Harry, as Hermione performed the counter-curse.  
  
"I was just trying to create the right atmosphere," sulked Ron. Fearful of yet another lull in their conversation, Harry pulled something out of his pocket. It was a large, red fish.  
  
"Here," Harry offered, realising that food is the answer to everything. "You can have some of this."  
  
"What, exactly, is that?"  
  
"That, Ron, is a red herring," Hermione said, proving that even if she had started to continuously call Ron, 'Ronald' in their third year, if only in a crude re-enacting of their movements which also included her making ridiculous and un-Hermione like comments about her hair (that's right, we didn't like the HP3 movie), she had returned to her normal, in-character ways. Just as Malfoy had re-established his habit of putting on at least three tonnes of hair gel every day. "One. A herring cured and dried, of reddish appearance."  
  
"Where did you get that?" Ron asked, wishing he had long, scraggly black hair with dream catchers intertwined in it, and a two-pronged beard to create the proper effect. (Spinach is a Pirates of the Caribbean obsessive as well, but this is easier to forgive as it is a great movie, unlike HP 4, which is, in fact, a book.)  
  
"Zonko's...Fish Stall," replied Harry, finishing with a suspicious cough. He examined his friends to ensure that they hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. Luckily for him, they were not so paranoid as to interpret his every action. Luckily for them, they were not so paranoid as to start suspecting themselves.  
  
Instead, Hermione simply continued her definition. "Two. A subject introduced to divert discussion as a herring drawn across a track would throw hounds out. Three. A false clue. Adj."  
  
"Ah hah!" exclaimed Harry. "So the sole purpose of this whole chapter is to confuse any readers." Harry's paranoia, fuelled by Hermione's earlier slip up, was spiralling out of control. And was, rather worryingly, quite close to the mark.  
  
"Now don't be silly, Harry," Hermione said gently, almost managing to stop her eyes from narrowing and glancing from side to side. "I think," she finally said, "that the alcohol vapours are getting to you. We should leave. Immediately." She looked back to Winky, calling, "Come back to Hogwarts with us. The Hog's Head is no place for a respectable house elf." They turned to leave.  
  
Behind them, Winky, looking the height of respectability in her ripped, burnt and dirty dress, paused to pick up a small phial of liquid that had been left on the table.  
  
  
  
A few days later, Hermione emerged from the library carrying some leaflets and badges.  
  
"Have you finished researching your enlightenment from the Hog's Head?" Ron asked eagerly. It would save them a whole year of confusing and frustrating adventures if Hermione had already figured out Voldemort's plans  
  
"Oh, that!" exclaimed Hermione. "That was easy. I double checked all of the information; I'm positive I know what he's up to."  
  
"What?" shouted Harry, his eye twitching madly. "How's he going to try and kill me this time?"  
  
Ron quietly handed him a small bottle of blue liquid. With a small murmur – 'Thanks' – Harry took the bottle and downed the whole lot.  
  
"The problem is I can't reveal that to you. What would you do all year if you didn't have to try and understand what You-Know-Who was planning. It simply has to remain a secret until the end of the year."  
  
Harry opened his mouth to shout accusations of switching to the Dark Side. Fortunately, at that moment the potion kicked in; a large, placid smile appeared on his face.  
  
"That was close," Ron whispered to Hermione, returning from where he had been sheltering behind an upturned table. Hermione sighed, and started to help him clear up the mess he had created when he had flipped it.  
  
It wasn't until a few minutes later that Ron said anything. "Hang on," he said, taking, as always, a very long time to grasp anything. "If you're not going to tell us about You-Know-Who's latest plot, what are those for?"  
  
Hermione looked at the pile of badges and leaflets that she had just picked up again. "I've decided to expand S.P.E.W.," she explained, handing them each a leaflet and a badge. The potion had diffused somewhat throughout his body, so Harry's smile was gone, but his brain was, once more, almost fully functional. "It's a branch to help out elves who have succumbed to alcohol in an attempt to escape from their lives of endless servitude." She saw Ron's expression and added, "We're going to try and stop Winky from drinking."  
  
"I understood what you were saying," replied Ron scathingly. "I was just wondering if you seriously expected us to walk around wearing these badges."  
  
"Of course! It will show your support and boost funds."  
  
"I think he's referring to the name," put in Harry.  
  
"Why?" retorted Hermione. "I was going to call it Stop Drinking in Creatures With Less Efficient Livers, but I thought S.D.C.W.L.E.L. was rather forgettable. This acronym is succinct and far more memorable. What, exactly, is wrong with calling it the Alcoholic Reform Society for Elves?"  
  
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Just so you know, that chapter was written by Spinach and edited by me, Bernard. All the stuff that was talking about Spinach being an obsessive was written by me, just so you don't start thinking that Spinach is a maniac who speaks in the third person, although she is.  
  
Has anyone else seen HP3 the movie??? It is so terrible. Did u notice how, at the beginning, Harry is, on purpose, practicing magic, blatantly ignoring the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry, or whatever its called (the whole super-lumos thing). Why did everyone later get in a stress about him accidentally blowing up his aunt when he had been sitting, calmly, in his bedroom making lots and lots of light? And what was the point of hiding under the cover, if the spell is only going to shine through????

What did they do to the chronology of the thing???? Such random timing – why did he only get his Firebolt at the end????? And did they really have to have three pictures of Daniel Radcliff's, or whatever the guy-who-plays- Harry's name is, face right at the end. That was terrifying.

The dementors were so funny, though. We were laughing all the way through. Spinach, who had, admittedly, just watched Peter Pan, thought it was hilarious that they could fly, which must have been due to all the happy thoughts, which was why they had had to steal so many from other people.

Did you notice that Titanic bit with Harry when he's riding Buckbeak and Buckbeak sort of drags his foot in the lake and Harry puts his arms out and you can just hear him going 'I'm flying Jack, I mean Buckbeak, I'm flying!'. Honestly, the inter-specie romance between Harry and Buckbeak is too big an issue for the third book – it's being saved up for the sixth one. (HARRY AND BUCKBEAK 4EVA!!!!! - spinach)


	5. One Meeting

One Meeting  
  
"Please wear your badges," Hermione entreated Harry and Ron, "We need to support Winky."  
  
"I don't care how much support ARSE gives, I am not wearing a badge until you change the name."  
  
"You may have a point..." Hermione said. After some deliberation, she said, "Yes...maybe for the benefit of the American readers," she paused, and then, so as not to over-confuse Ron or Harry, swiftly changed it – "I mean, imaginary American exchange students, we should call it the All-out Sobriety Society."  
  
"NOOOOO!" Neville randomly appeared, screaming, in their path. "This is BRITAIN – the national muggle currency is POUNDS not DOLLARS; mum is spelt with a "u" not an "o"; Harry's FRINGE covers his scar, not his BANGS; and it was the PHILOSOPHER'S STONE – actually an object that alchemists looked for – that Harry rescued in his first year!" Then he ran away again, still screaming.  
  
In America, where thinking is apparently discouraged, they call it the Sorcerer's Stone.  
  
Now I have successfully alienated the target audience, back to the plot.  
  
"Wait, Neville!" Harry called after the swiftly disappearing, rather rotund boy. "Aren't you coming to the DA meeting?"  
  
"The DA?" Neville questioned. "Why do we still have DA meetings – Umbridge is gone and Tonks is a competent teacher."  
  
"Yes, I know," Harry replied, "but the author needs a reason to have a group of people who aren't all in Gryffindor who are relatively well known." A long silence met this remark.  
  
"Uh, what he means is...it's fun!" Ron covered up, shoving more of Harry's potion down his throat.  
  
"Nice recovery," a random bee buzzed in his ear. This was too much for Hermione, who launched herself at the bee, screaming something about this not being Aladdin. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on whether or not you think Ron looks good in purple, Hermione smacked him in the face by accident. Ron collapsed to the floor. After all, we know from certain very accurate films that her blows are 'brilliant' and 'feel good'. (This doesn't mean anything dodgy, in case you can find sexual innuendo in anything, like Spinach)  
  
Hermione rushed over to him – "Asleep, my love?" She trailed of, blushing and performed a quick memory charm, before restarting her Shakespeare quote...I mean, perfectly normal prose. "Asleep...Ron? What dead, my dove?" To appreciate this fully, get a boy to read her part in falsetto.  
  
"No," Ron said, standing up again, "But did you have to hit me?" Ron, who, incidentally, did not think that he looked good in purple, and therefore did not want a bruise, queried. Are you still with me or was that last sentence far too complicated? Deep breaths now, no need to panic...  
  
"I'm sorry Ron!" Hermione exclaimed. "I honestly only did that to provide a good...no, wait...a really bad way for the author to orchestrate your exit." Hermione paused before swearing to herself. That was the third time this chapter that the author had been mentioned. She got out a stress ball and muttered to herself, "I am not a fictional character. I am not a fictional character."  
  
A random mirror appeared and said, "That's the spirit, dear." Do not ask how a mirror spoke – it has the right to speak just like everything else. Just because it has neither a voice box, nor a tongue, nor lips (the latter tow are essential for changing noise into intelligible, or in mine and Spinach's case, random yet rather worrying, sounds)... ARE YOU PERSECUTING REFLECTIVE SURFACES?? HUH, PUNK?!?!?!  
  
Sorry about that, coursework and revision overload.  
  
In the time it took Hermione to think of the Violation-Of-Mirror- (rights)-Is-Terrible Society, and then reject it because she couldn't think of another word to do with heaving and VOM(r)ITS wasn't quite up to scratch, all the other members of the DA, excepting Cho and her friend, Michael Corner and his friends, and that random Zacharias guy, because neither of the authors like any of them, appeared.  
  
Wow! A 71 word sentence and you haven't yet gone brain-dead. I applaud you.  
  
They were about to head off to the Room of Requirement when suddenly Professor McGonagall ran up.  
  
"Oh Ron, you are hurt!" McGonagall exclaimed.  
  
Ron asked someone to please explain to McGonagall what happened after you had been hit in the face a very short time ago.  
  
Hey, if you haven't read The House at Pooh Corner recently, it's you loss. Such a great book... (emotional sniff)  
  
"In any case," McGonagall said, her voice no longer the squeak it had just been, and wondering why she had just felt the urge to be a pink Very Small Animal. "We shall have to call a meeting of the Gryffindor Quidditch team – Ron's injury needs to be discussed."  
  
"I don't think that's entirely necessary," Harry said, confused, "Anyway, aren't I the captain so I'm the one who should decide when team meetings are called and you, in fact, have nothing to do with it?"  
  
"No," Hermione said, a little hysterically, glancing at a copy of the rough outline of the plot, "I really think you should go. I mean, Gryffindor colours are gold and scarlet, and if Ron turns up purple..." she trailed off before finishing darkly, "it would be terrible for morale."  
  
"Ok," Harry said, simple creature that he is. He then skipped off to have a meeting with the fellow members of the team: Ron, Ginny, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Seamus and Dean.  
  
The rest of the DA members (not that Colin or Dennis are members...) stood around awkwardly. "Well, we can't really have a meeting with so many members gone, can we?" Hermione prompted.  
  
Suddenly, Blaise Zabini appeared and said, "I know, let's go down to the kitchens and scab some food off the elves!"  
  
Hermione stared. "What are you doing here? You were mentioned once! Once in the entire series! You only exist so JK could show off how she could think of last names beginning with "z"!"  
  
Blaise broke down into hysterical sobs. "That didn't stop other people randomly inserting me into their fics! People don't even know whether I'm male or female! I don't even know!"  
  
Hermione patted Blaise on his...her...THE shoulder. And she thought Harry had gender issues. "There, there," she said, trying to be comforting.  
  
"Don't patronise me!" Blaise screamed before running off into the distance and starting a new double life as a spy. He/she was great at it – even Bond only gets an average of three women per film, but Blaise could get guys as well, seeing as even he/she didn't know what he/she was, never mind which way he/she swung. (According to spy films, the number of what shall be called 'relationships' so that this fic doesn't have to change to PG13, that a person has, the better a spy they are.)  
  
After a suitable amount of time spent staring in shock after Blaise, Neville said, "He...she... It was a good idea though, going down to the kitchens." Take note of who says this, and also how he has previously been described as rotund. Another adjective shall be added to this –  
  
"You're obese, Neville," Justin Finch-Fletchley (that's right, not just Justin; all Hufflepuffs have to have their last names directly following their first names, just in case the reader get confused with all the other Justin's, Ernie's, Hannah's and so on that attend Hogwarts.) "It's a good idea though."  
  
"Did you know," Hermione, who clearly did know, asked, "that if you're too fat, you're fat can choke you?" No-one knows, and no-one will ever know, why she chose to share this. Except Hermione, of course, because she knows everything, but...she doesn't want to tell anyone...yeah... (aside – I think they believe me...)  
  
Somewhere during this ramble, they managed to arrive at the kitchen. Hermione tickled the pear (and don't start persecuting fruit and saying that it can't be tickled just because it doesn't have nerve endings...it has the right to be tickled if it so chooses.) The portrait swung open.  
  
Winky appeared. "Yes, miss?" she asked, looking at Hermione fiendishly.  
  
"Hmmm," said Hermione, turning towards the others. "How suspicious! Winky is usually drunk, not alert and ready to serve. And the other house- elves are usually rushing around, preparing food, not tied up in a corner with gags in their mouths." She looked directly at where a camera would be if it was a film and not just everyday life, and said, "Could this be something to do with the stranger in the Hog's Head?"  
  
"You are getting paranoid," Ernie MacMillan said pompously (guess the house just by how many names he is referred to by). "Can we have..." he paused, a very pompous pause (well, it is Ernie MacMillan), "the basket of the gently glowing cupcakes with a suspiciously empty phial next to it?"  
  
"Of course, sir," Winky said, handing them the basket. Everyone took a cake as they left the kitchen and started eating. Then Winky was alone (aside from all the other house-elves that were tied up) and she laughed a deeply evil laugh.  
  
"Mwah hah hah hah hah!" It would have been so much more sinister if it wasn't actually the approximate pitch of a dog whistle.  
  
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I am going to respond to all the reviewers individually now, because it should give me a feeling of Zeus-like power. TEE HEE!!!!! You won't know what I'm talking about because you haven't read the reviews (I care little that you can easily read all reviews, or that the replies are easy to work out from context)  
  
Fallen Angel of Deatheaven: thanks for being such a staunch supporter of this fic – you don't know how warm and fuzzy it makes us feels inside to have had someone there with us from the beginning. Not very actually, but oh well...  
  
Flaming Bubbles of Death: yeah, read "say what" and that is soooo funny (SPOON!) Have you read "how to write a harry potter fanfic" or any of Silver Pheonix25's parodies??? They're really funny as well.  
  
Elly and the Gundam Wing Fan: that wasn't shameless flattery in the previous reply, honest...ahem. You really shouldn't have mentioned HP 3 because I'm just going to have to rant about some more things which I had forgotten.  
  
Why did they randomly change the location of the castle???? WHY!!!!! I'm so confused. I mean, we all already know that they teach magic at Hogwarts (kind of essential to the plot, really) so why do they feel the need to prove it by changing the location???? And Lupin looked really really bad as a werewolf – the only difference between them and real wolves is meant to be tubular nostrils or something, yet the werewolf in the film looked like an oversized ferret soaked in formaldehyde or something. And it was fooled by Hermione's really bad imitation howl that obviously wasn't a proper howl.  
  
A nonny mouse ( ): good thing that you aren't Spinach coz that would be REALLY sad... oh yeah, good job on that really original pune 


	6. Hermione is in the Dark

Disclaimer: These characters are mine, my own, my precious. Oh wait, no, that's the ring of power. The characters, the setting, they're J. K. Rowling's.  
  
**Hermione is in the Dark  
**  
Ron, Harry, Ginny, Seamus and Dean stalked away from McGonagall's office, where they had had their "meeting". Ok, fine, game of monopoly. Ginny, imaginary tiara still on her head, was downing an imaginary flute of champagne.  
  
"But I had the dark blue properties!" she wailed, her expensive – well, it would have been if it had actually existed – diamond jewellery clinking.  
  
Harry took a drag on what was probably a cigarette, but may have been a joint – you ca never tell with these figments of the imagination – and took a swig out of what was probably a bottle in a brown paper bag. "She left me!" he shouted, his voice slurred. "She took everything and left me with only those manky, one-bed roomed brown properties!" He waved the bottle vaguely.  
  
Seamus jabbered into an imaginary mobile, talking of new property transactions he could perform. Needless to say, he had won, while they had lost.  
  
"Tragic," Ron said, shaking his head in disgust.  
  
"I know what you mean," Dean replied, "the death-trap of hotels on the reds and the yellows – that's just unnecessarily cruel."  
  
Ron and Dean had not played, having only just gotten over their own dangerous monopoly addictions. It was a viscous cycle – the highs of winning and then the inevitable lows of loosing. Then, the need to keep playing until that joyous win came again and thus the cycle continued.  
  
Both addictions had brought about dire consequences. Ron had lost all his money; he was constantly having to pay bail, or trick the guards by throwing a double, to get out of jail, before finally blowing it all on a night in a posh hotel, which e claimed to have been forced into. Depressed by the lack of pretty coloured bills, he jumped onto the railway line, trying to commit suicide, not realising that by 'railways', it only means four bits of card. He managed to pull through his injuries (a nasty paper cut) and now only gibbers slightly when he sees undersized, metal top hats, boots, steamships, cars and Scottie dogs.  
  
Dean had loved the thrills of monopoly, but, unfortunately, none of his family shared his passion, so he was forced to play against himself. Imagine the confusion at the close of a game that you had both lost and won! Poor Dean... In this fragile mental state, the news that he had not won the beauty competition, but come second, was too much for Dean, even if he did receive £10. After several months on Prozac, he concluded that monopoly was taking over his life and had decided to quit. He was even getting over his "passive playing" problem, and had only had one panic attack in the entire game that Ginny, Harry and Seamus had just played.  
  
What? Are you implying that I have a problem? I promise you that I do not have a monopoly obsession and if anyone says anything about that making it even more worrying then...then...I shall be forced to let Spinach write the rest of the chapter! Yeah, that shut you up pretty quickly.  
  
At a suitable distance behind those poor, aforementioned, lost souls, strutted Colin and Dennis Creevy, gaggles of girls surrounding them. Amazing, really, how buff a year on the Quidditch team had made them. After listening rapturously to how Colin had escaped death from a basilisk in his first year, they turned to Dennis. Hermione, Neville and Ernie Macmillan, who were heading towards Harry, Ron, Ginny, Seamus and Dean, passed by Colin, Dennis and the simpering girls just as he finished the story.  
  
"And then the giant squid pushed me back into the boat."  
  
"Oh, Dennis!" one of the girls said dreamily, "you have such a way with animals."  
  
"It's my animal magnetism," Dennis replied modestly – "The giant squid is female and no female can resist me."  
  
The girls, seemingly unfazed by this admission of a somewhat more involved relationship with a squid than was suitable, kept clinging to the boys.  
  
Harry, Ginny and Seamus, seeing Neville, Hermione and Ernie Macmillan approaching, quickly got rid of their fantasy monopoly personalities, ashamed of them, as if they were some sort of crime. Actually, they were, as all monopoly had been banned from Hogwarts in an attempt to lower violence and depression.  
  
"Hello!" Harry called out.  
  
"Hi!" Ernie Macmillan said. Harry stood for a few minutes, as if waiting for something, giving Neville and Ernie Macmillan time to catch up with them. Then Harry shook his head, and tried again.  
  
"So what did you do while we were in our..." he winked at Ron, Dean, Seamus and Ginny, "meeting?"  
  
"We went down to the kitchens and Winky gave us these cupcakes," Ernie said, holding up the significantly less full basket of glowing cupcakes. Harry waited again, before asking him to repeat what he had just said, an edge of panic in his voice. Before Ernie Macmillan could answer, Ginny cut in.  
  
"What is wrong with you Harry?" she asked, not believing that she had ever liked him.  
  
Harry stood, gaping at Ernie Macmillan and then, in fear, at random parts of the ceiling. "The narrator!" he cried, "the narrator didn't say 'pretentiously'! The narrator always says 'pretentiously' after 'Ernie Macmillan said'!" Then he collapsed in a gibbering wreck on the floor. Ron forced potion into his mouth.  
  
"What do you mean by 'narrator'?" Neville questioned. "We aren't characters in a story or anything," he scoffed. Then, in a serious tone, he asked, "Do you think, Harry?"  
  
Harry, regaining inner tranquillity as the potion took effect, did not reply. A happy smile spread over his face, and he appeared not to have heard Neville.  
  
"Ok," Neville acquiesced, "Maybe you're the wrong person to ask." He looked round the group, trying to find someone who could truthfully answer 'yes' to that question. Finding no-one, he said, "The point is, I'm sure that there is someone in this school who can think, and if one thinks, then one exists. So you see," he laughed, the annoying, condescending laugh of one who understands philosophy, "we can't just be fictitious characters."  
  
"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked suddenly. Did everyone notice that it was RON who asked about HERMIONE? Yeah, that was a subtle continuation of their hidden love for each other...at least until I started discussing it.  
  
Everyone case around for her. Eventually, Ernie Macmillan said, "She might have got caught up with all the girls around Colin and Dennis." All the boys glared subconsciously at the Creevy brothers – the most popular (with girls, anyway) boys in the school. Then Ron spotted her –  
  
"There," he said, "third one to the left on Colin's right hand."  
  
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, doubtfully.  
  
"I would know Hermione anywhere," Ron replied proudly before adding, "Not that I spend hours staring at the back of her head..."  
  
"Right..." Harry said. After a long pause that was so heavily pregnant that it was in the hospital screaming for drugs, Harry called her name – "Hermione!"  
  
She turned around, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Yes, Harry?" she asked, clearly annoyed about her fawning being interrupted.  
  
"Uh...is something wrong?"  
  
"No!" she said, rushing over, hysterical. "Why? Do I look bad? Does my hair look bad? Don't tell me Colin just saw me with my hair looking bad!"  
  
"You look fine, Hermione," Ginny assured her. Ron had been about to say something similar, but had decided against it, in case people started thinking he liked her or something.  
  
"Do you really mean that?" Hermione gushed, "Thanks, Ginny!" She hugged a rather shocked Ginny.  
  
"Since when do you care what Colin thinks?" Ron asked hotly.  
  
"Colin!" Hermione squealed, turning swiftly around. But he wasn't there. "Where is he gone?" she asked frantically.  
  
"Well it doesn't take a genius to work it out," Harry said, nudging Ron. "Those two and several girls..."  
  
"Yes," said Ginny, "to dinner, which is where we should be going as well." As they entered the Great Hall, Ernie Macmillan handed Harry the cupcakes.  
  
"Here, have one," he offered.  
  
"I don't want to ruin my appetite," Harry said, "but I'll have one after dinner." He took the basket.  
  
How very wrong he was.  
  
For after dinner, he did not have a cupcake, but an argument with Malfoy. "Potter," the pale boy (well, teenager now, really) drawled, eyeing the basket, "You mean someone has actually given you something other than abuse?"  
  
Harry hugged the basket protectively. He would have replied, but as a witty repost was unlikely as he had little to no wit, and he was unable to swear due to the tender age of some of his fans, he didn't.  
  
Draco looked at the contents of Harry's basket and sneered. "Only two left?" he drawled, before a pause, followed by him commenting in a worried drawl, "You do know they're glowing..."  
  
"Yes!" Harry said, snatching the basket away. There was a long pause as everyone waited for Harry to make a remark that was only insulting because so little wit had been put into it.  
  
When no such remark seemed forthcoming, Draco leaned over towards him. "It's alright Harry," he reassured him (in a drawl), "if you whisper it, then you'll have fulfilled the requirement to retaliate without horrifically embarrassing yourself in front of everyone." There was a pause, "Well, until I tell everyone just to confirm what a complete and utter asshole I am and that I am definitely not secretly on your side."  
  
Reluctantly, Harry did so. Draco, still leaning over, sneakily slipped a piece of parchment into Harry's pocket.  
  
When Harry had finished, Draco collapsed in hysterics on the floor. "He asked," Draco managed to get out between giggles, "he asked if the reason my hair is blond is because it turn white in fright every time I look in the mirror."  
  
The Great Hall exploded into laughter. Harry slouched sullenly, and stuck his hands into his pockets, trying to look like a moping teenager. However, just as his previous attempt to act teenage had failed – the fire whisky in the Hog's Head episode – this attempt also failed, for upon placing his hand in his pocket, he discovered the parchment put there by Draco.  
  
As everyone who wears a school uniform with pockets will know, this is quite a feat as pockets are usually stuffed with useless junk – letters that were meant to have reached your parents months ago, used up biros etc. As Hogwarts is a boarding school, where quills are used, this is not, however, an issue for the students. Unless, of course, they have strange, hoarding personalities and like keeping quills that have been snapped and their acceptance letter to Hogwarts, but the complexities of Ginny's psyche are to be saved for another time.  
  
Harry stared at the parchment. It was folded in half, and printed on the visible side, in block capitals, were the words 'IMPORTANT PARCHMENT ONLY TO BE READ BY SLYTHERINS WHICH DEFINATLEY DOESN'T CONTAIN THE SCHEDULED TIME OF THE NEXT MEETING WITH VOLDEMORT"  
  
Subtle there, I know.  
  
"Malfoy!" Harry said, "You must have accidentally dropped this in my pocket."  
  
Draco stared at him in disbelief, before proceeding to band his head against the wall in despair. A few minutes later, and with only a mild concussion, he turned to Hermione.  
  
"Is he always this dense?" Draco demanded, but Hermione wasn't listening. She was twirling some hair round a finger and smiling up at Goyle with big, round eyes (it's one of those wonderful things about poetic licence – you can make people smile with their eyes instead of their mouths.)  
  
"Oh, Gregory," she said, dreamily. "I'd never noticed how big your..." she paused, certain that, a few hours ago, she had known what the scientific names of all the anatomy of the body, despite not having done biology since she was ten. However, the feeling passed, so she decided to just sound ignorant, "muscles are." Bet you thought I was going to put something else there, you sick minded individual.  
  
Draco rolled his eyes and turned to Ron to repeat his question. Ron, however, was also in no fit state to reply. He was staring at Hermione while doing vague imitations of her actions in disbelief.  
  
Draco took a few deep breaths, composed himself, set the sneer on his face, and turned to Harry. "I don't want it back – not now that you've touched it," he drawled.  
  
Harry turned to Ron, making wild gestures that either meant he needed some potion fast, or he was planning on doing some unpleasant things to an elephant... You figure it out. Ron, shell-shocked as he was, could not do anything but say "you do that" in a distracted tone. This may have been a subconscious effort by Ron to get Hermione to start a society that discouraged such disrespect towards elephants, thus returning her to her normal personality, but it's more likely he wasn't paying attention. No- one would wish that on an elephant.  
  
No-one.  
  
You know, that's the second time I've mentioned doing inappropriate things to large animals. Don't worry, it's probably due to sleep deprivation and DOES NOT suggest a secret desire to do said inappropriate actions to large animals. Just making sure everyone is clear on that.  
  
Harry was groaning, his anger, not having been dissipated by his potion, was so great that it was causing him physical pain. Then a fiendish look of glee, not dissimilar to the expression Winky had worn in the precious chapter, stole over his face.  
  
"Accio bagpipes!" he shouted, giggling madly. The Great Hall went silent as every person – teacher and child – stared in fear as the bagpipes zoomed in overhead.  
  
It was the worst punishment Harry could perform.  
  
At this point, something must be explained about musicians – namely, Harry is not one. Musicians have played their instrument (or sung, although singers don't really count as musicians) for some time, and have thus developed "tone" (it sounds good), "intonation" (it's in tune) and sometimes "improvisation" (the ability to make up a melody."  
  
As this is the first time the bagpipes have been mentioned (he got them for Christmas last year, as a hand-made gift from Hagrid) we can assume that he has not touched them, or, at the very least, practiced much, so he can not do any of these thing. Bagpipes, like violins, tend to sound like a cat's death cries anyways, so for Harry to play them was a truly sadistic act.  
  
Fluffy must have been tone deaf to have fallen asleep to _Random Notes (an atonal piece)_ by Harry Potter. But then again, he is just a dog.  
  
In a desperate attempt to stop this torture, Vincent Crabbe made a leap for the basket and quickly consumed the cupcakes inside.  
  
Harry stopped playing – well, squeaking, tunelessly – and stared in shock. There was tumultuous applause.  
  
Harry, rage boiling up inside him, shouted, "You..." He paused, trying to think of a word that was appropriate for the average age of his usual audience (of the actual books, not this fic), but that a self respecting 17- year-old would say. Then, realising that he was fighting a loosing battle, Harry settled on "bum-head".  
  
"Oh, Harry," sighed Vincent, "do you have to be so scatological?"  
  
Harry, speechless at the use, by Vincent Crabbe, of a polysyllable, and at the theft of his cupcakes, stormed off, shoving the parchment that Malfoy had, accidentally, of-course, allowed into his possession into an inside pocket.  
  
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Terribly sorry about how long it has taken to update, but this is a ridiculously long chapter so that should appease you somewhat. Also, I was really busy last weekend, what with playing golf (I find it hilarious as well, so feel free to laugh), having a sleepover, having a 2-hour origami lesson, going riding, and having a concert (in which I screwed up most spectacularly).  
  
Anyway, point is that NO MORE SCHOOL!!!!! Actually, that has nothing to do with what I was saying, but it's still good. 


	7. The Breaking of the Friendship

Disclaimer: wait a minute...nope, they still don't belong to me. DAMN HER AND HER OWNERSHIP OF HARRY POTTER!!!!! ([shake fist angrily at sky] Panther)  
  
Don't worry about the panther thing – it's due to far too little sleep and far too much sugar and random cloud hallucinations and...in fact, I won't try to explain.  
  
**The Breaking of the Friendship**  
  
As there has been no mention of anyone actually attending class, it had better be included, just so everyone realises that this is a school, rather than an escapist fantasy. Potions seems rather appealing because then we can all delight in Harry's pain. Unless you like Harry (you are a sad, strange, little man, and I pity you), in which case you can feel righteous anger. It's all good.  
  
"Double potions with Slytherin," Hermione sighed, dreamily as they walked towards the dungeons. Her hair was styled fashionably, which was the result of a lot of hair gel and two hours of Lavender's help before breakfast.  
  
"Why is it that we seem to have double potions with Slytherin every year?" Ron asked sulkily, misinterpreting her sigh.  
  
"Yeah," Harry mused, "it's almost like whoever arranges our scheduled deliberately does it to create a tense atmosphere."  
  
Ron nervously poured potion down Harry's throat, glancing up occasionally, to make sure the tartan bagpipes weren't approaching. "Don't be silly Harry," he soothed, "no-one is deliberately making your life hell."  
  
Hermione sighed dramatically again, annoyed that they hadn't noticed her earlier I-have-a-crush-on-Gregory-sigh. They should be questioning her, so she could blush and deny having a crush on anyone, not ignoring her! She would have stormed off, but she needed their support for when they approached Gregory – entered the dungeon – in case she fainted.  
  
Once in Potions, they were told to pair up, as always. Hermione, as Ron and Harry were partners, and she couldn't possibly go with, say, Neville, was left alone. Snape sighed as he saw the obvious "tension-trap" set by the author, for he was going to have to split up the other obvious trio – Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy – and put her, just to be as detrimental to her self-esteem as possible, with Malfoy.  
  
Just so you know, this isn't some twisted display of his hidden affection for her. Did you know that the search finds 55 Hermione/Snape romances! Fifty-five! That's fifty-five people who have devoted time to figuring out a way to get Snape and Hermione to love each other. Malfoy/Hermione pairings, terrifying thought the prospect is, at least don't involve one person being over twice the age of the other!  
  
In any case, the point is that Snape, for no other reason than because he's intrinsically sadistic and malicious, was planning on forcing Malfoy to be her partner. Hermione, however, did something most unexpected.  
  
"I see Gregory is also partner-less, sir," she said, surprised by her own boldness. Snape, after taking a minute to realise to whom Gregory referred to (his and Vincent's first names were actually mentioned in the fourth book – we aren't just making it up), noticed that 'Gregory' was indeed distancing himself from 'Vincent'.  
  
"Yes..." Snape said, staring in shock at Vincent, who was discussing the controversy about the pronunciation of controversy (ok, that isn't as funny written down, but even so), which he seemed to find terribly amusing.  
  
"Yes, go with Goyle, uh, Gregory," he said, clearly quite rattled. Then, turning to the rest of the class, he snapped, "Instructions are on the board – get on with it!" He stormed out of the dungeon up to the staff room to have a quick fag. If the authors were doing this to Hermione – quite a popular character – then what would they do to him – the most despised teacher in the school?  
  
For the purposes of assuring the American reader that Snape's actions were not at all suspect, I shall now correct a misinformed definition. 'Fag' means cigarette, so by 'having a fag' he is merely smoking. That misunderstanding was the cause of much embarrassment during a 'drugs awareness' discussion, when we lived in America. The word 'rubber' also has painful memories – in England, it means eraser, not condom. As you can imagine, the words "can I borrow someone's rubber – just in case" have quite a different meaning depending on which definition one interprets them with. And I was only seven...  
  
After an hour, as Snape had not returned, everyone put a labelled sample of their potion on his desk, cleaned up and then filed outside. Such was the terror he instilled in them.  
  
Hermione rushed over to Harry and Ron – "Guess what!" she squealed. Before they could answer, she continued, unfortunately for everyone's ears, at the same high pitch, "Gregory just asked me out!"  
  
Ron cracked up into hysterics while Harry stared at her with morbid fascination. Hermione, choosing to interpret Ron's laughter as excitements, said, "I know – isn't it great? We're going on our first date this weekend."  
  
There was an abrupt halt in Ron's laughter, before he resumed laughing again. Eventually, he had recovered enough to say, "You almost had me fooled there, Hermione." He has 'not' had a crush on her for the past seven years, after all – you can't expect him to take it well.  
  
"What do you mean 'fooled'?" Hermione questioned sniffily. "Me and Gregory have something special." And she stormed off, leaving Ron staring after her. (Sorry about that – sentences shouldn't start with a conjunction. Now I feel bad; bad Bernard.)  
  
  
  
Ron, faced by this betrayal from Hermione, did what he had been trying to do for quite some time – behave like a teenager. The moody behaviour, the sullen expression, the expression, the possibly fatal drug addiction...he had it all. What? If we told you outright whether it killed him or not, it would ruin all the suspense.  
  
Ron had started on small stuff – magic mushrooms from the forest (well, he is a wizard). However, only a week after Hermione's announcement of her new relationship, he had already moved on to marijuana (more commonly known as cauldron).  
  
Harry, bored of talking to Hermione about Gregory and of watching Ron consume vast quantities of cereal when he had the munchies, had nothing to do. This made him depressed.  
  
Very depressed.  
  
After all, he had always had something to do in the past: play Quidditch, do homework, solve a mystery, escape from yet another person who wanted to kill him... There was no Quidditch – Gryffindor had been disqualified after the match the precious day. Harry had, as it was a cold day and he was sure Ron wouldn't mind, offered Ron's thermos of tea to the whole team.  
  
Honestly, how stupid (yet with noble intentions) can he get? Ron was on drugs, specifically magic mushroom, which are brewed into a tea, yet Harry thought it was normal tea? It did warm the team up, but it also made them think their opponents were riding dragons. They won, of course – who wouldn't fly faster, and therefore better, if they thought dragons were chasing them? Unfortunately, they were busted for taking performance enhancing drugs, so now, no more Quidditch.  
  
As for homework, it was no fun without Hermione doing it for him, so he didn't bother. And the thing about the other two was he knew that either one or the other or both would eventually happen, but he had to wait until the climax. Or climaxes in the case of this fic, which, due to its enormous respect for accepted literary technique, does things like talk directly to the reader and have two climaxes.  
  
As Harry sat in the common room, being depressed, a small and, because of her age, intrinsically annoying first-year approached him. "Remember that there are people worse off than you," she said, trying to comfort him.  
  
It is widely known that people remind depressed people about this to cheer them up. What is not widely known is why this is meant to cheer them up.  
  
Harry, not feeling in the mood to discuss the finer points of psychology, decided to just listen to the general populace and take her advice. In fact, he decided to go even further and not just remember those who are worse off, but actually visit her. Harry purposefully got up from his char, strode out of (or rather, ungainly scrambled through) the portrait hole and set off to visit Moaning Myrtle.  
  
Unfortunately, he had forgotten which girls' toilets she lived, well, undead-ed, in. Or at least that's what he told the angry group of girls surrounding him like a lynch mob and chanting "Pervert!" The gullible fools believed him.  
  
After that lucky escape, Harry decided that he might as well actually go and see Myrtle. He had nothing else to do and, besides, he might as well cover his tracks.  
  
"Myrtle?" he called as he entered her bathroom.  
  
"Yes, Harry?" she asked, floating gracefully towards him, a slight pink tinge in her cheeks. For a ghost, that's the equivalent of that full body blush that Peter does in the new version of Peter Pan. They don't have much blood, you see.  
  
Harry, rather than unload all his problems on her, like he had been planning, suddenly noticed something about her – her glasses. He glanced at a mirror to confirm – yes, she was wearing exactly the same round glasses as him.  
  
His stomach rode a unicycle before cart-wheeling through hoops of fire. What? It did back flips for Cho.  
  
It was fate. Two people wouldn't just, by coincidence, actually choose to wear the geekiest glasses possibly available. And Harry Potter wasn't one to argue with fate. I mean, he clearly believes all that stuff, what with how he's actually worried about the prophecy.  
  
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I'm sorry, that was the worst ending to a chapter ever. Let's try again:  
  
Far away, in a dark underground lair, Lord Voldemort sat watching the proceedings on a large flat screen TV.  
  
"Mwah hah hah hah hah!" he laughed, evil, dark, foreboding.  
  
That's right – he had managed to obtain an illegal copy of Harry Potter 7, the movie, several years before it was even made.  
  
What a truly evil man.  
  
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Just so you know, probably won't update for a while because:  
1) Spinach is writing the next chapter, so that will take ages  
2) Am going to summer school with the youth orchestra and then having a friend over for a few days  
3) Grandmother has come down and I feel it is terribly antisocial to hide away writing rubbish about Harry Potter 


	8. The Departure of Dumbledore

Disclaimer: If I was JK Rowling, I would be selling this for huge profit, rather than posting it on the internet for free; therefore, it is safe to assume that we just have far too much time on our hands or really bad marketing skills.

The Departure of Dumbledore

Harry felt like he was walking on air. This may or may not have had something to with the fact that he had no idea that at that very moment, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard of all time, was watching his antics throughout his 7th year, although, of course, every action and word had been mutilated beyond recognition by misplaced director's input and even worse acting on the part of certain people. But we can forgive Ron, because his name is Rupert, and, after all, bears in tweed trousers shouldn't be expected to act well.

However, the more likely cause was that some of the girls who Harry had previously surprised in the girls' toilets while "looking for Myrtle" had wanted vengeance. Harry was so enamoured by Myrtle's ravishing beauty (round glasses and bunches make a brilliant combination...yeah...) and sparkling wit (hmmm...I'll get back to you on that (unless I forget or can't find you)) that he had failed to notice them creep up on him and cast a levitation charm. However, even after Madame Pomfrey had disabled the spell so Harry could actually go through doorways, he was still feeling excessively elated.

Harry's timely relationship with Myrtle proved extremely useful. Hermione was busy competing with Lavender and Parvati for the illustrious title of Hogwarts Flirt of the Year. Ron was killing brain cells by taking as many drugs as he could get his hands on; this often involved robbing the richer members of the school to buy the aforementioned drugs. The alternative activity which Ron was favouring was attempting to commit suicide due to overwhelming depression. All of this meant that Harry could spend more time with his new significant other.

This is very beneficial to the author, if not the continuation of this plot, because it meant Harry had no spare time in which to have significant adventures so the author does not have to record anything.

In fact, as Hermione has already had her epiphany, Harry doesn't have to do anything except ask Hermione what on earth's going on at the end of the year. And perhaps get in touch with his manager and have a word about incompetent authors being given free reign.

Not that Harry had a manager, or knew that there were random girls writing stories about him. After all, he was in love and therefore couldn't possibly notice anything but his One True Love.

So... That leaves us with nothing better to do than sit her twiddling our thumbs.

Twiddle, twiddle, twiddle.

Twiddle.

...

On the other hand, we could always check out what's happening in one of Harry's classes. How about...potions!

A familiar scene was replaying itself in the Dungeons where Slytherin and Gryffindor 7th years should have been learning how to brew potions rather than taking abuse from the potions master.

Or, as was happening on this occasion, waiting outside because Snape was apparently 'still preparing' for their upcoming lesson.

"What could he possibly be doing in there?" asked Dean loudly. All heads turned towards Hermione.

"What are you looking at me for?" she asked, as Goyle gave her a love bite.

Beside Harry, Ron injected some Heroine. By rights, only Heroes where allowed to take such a powerful stimulant. However, Harry's infatuation with Myrtle meant Ron had been able to steal some without Harry noticing.

"Why won't she tell us?" Parvati asked Lavender.

"Maybe she doesn't know," Lavender replied.

The two girls stole another glance at Hermione.

"No. Hermione knows EVERYTHING," Ron interrupted proudly and then burst into tears as he saw what she was doing with Goyle.

"Maybe she's protecting him."

"Why?"

Lavender looked at Parvati. "There's only one possible reason."

"No!" exclaimed Parvati, unable to believe that Hermione of all people would...the idea was preposterous. She took another look at Hermione and Goyle. "Mind you," Parvati said thoughtfully, "She does have a thing for Slytherin guys."

Beside them, Ron was injecting his seventh dose. In his feverish, drugged up mind, he agreed with them. Perhaps it was because beneath Hermione's and Snape's apparent utter loathing for each other, there was...utter loathing... Perhaps not.

Inside the dark, dank classroom, Snape hastily put away the block of lard into his private Potions store. He glanced about the room to ensure that nobody knew of his terrible secret (except a small spider making its web in the corner of the room and Hermione (or so Snape thought – DUN DUN DUUUUN!!!!!)) before unlocking the door. The students poured in.

Snape checked his watch (or whatever the appropriate wizarding counterpart is) to discover that the lesson was starting five minutes late. Blast. That meant five minutes less in which he could terrorise Gryffindors. In that case, he had better start immediately.

"Longbottom," he sneered, "You would do well to remind yourself of school policy concerning the use of sticking charms against innocent young ladies."

The young lady in question, Fleur Delacour, stopped clinging to Neville momentarily in order to glare to full effect at Snape.

"Miss Delacour, forgive me. You are far from innocent," Snape amended silkily.

The rest of the class stared in amazement. What had happened to the Snape they knew and loathed? What he had just said was hardly terrifying material. This new Snape was about as good at menacing as a fluffy bunny with the words 'BOO' written on its nose. As one, the class turned to look at Hermione. She looked up from snogging Goyle.

"What?"

Meanwhile, Neville had been busy pacifying Fleur. Harry, who for some reason could not get pink nighties and Pork Illustrated out of his mind, shook his head to clear it. (Watch Shrek 2 about six times (YAY!!!!!) and pay special attention to the first thing the wolf says.) Unfortunately, his gaze fell on Neville.

"[insert some random French here]" said the plump boy. Fleur's laugh rang out, like...well, as laugh. But a very suave, gentile one.

"Ron!" cried Harry as he elbowed his friend. "The whole world's gone mad!" But Ron had passed out, still clutching a near empty vial.

"Silence!" shouted Snape, as he cast silencio to make it look like the class was paying attention. "I have the innate ability to keep control of even the most rowdy class because I instil boundless terror into each and every heart." The class fell silent, as they thought of the boundless terror. Or at least stopped trying to make noise through the silencio charm.

"Better," he told the class. "But you still need to work on being scared witless by me. Prep tonight: spend half and hour contemplating how much I would enjoy watching you die and a foot of parchment on how my sadism far exceeds that of Mr. Filch."

"Now," Snape's voice was full of malice as he spun around to face Harry. "50 points from Gryffindor, Mr Potter."

"Why?" asked Harry, expecting to catch Snape out.

"For continuing to wear glasses. I briefly mentioned a potion that gave the drinker 20/20 vision to another teacher as I passed you in a corridor yesterday."

"Slimy git," Harry muttered to Ron. "Last year he took points off because I eavesdropped and now because I didn't." Ron groaned softly in what Harry decided must be agreement.

"You shall now make this very complicated potion. If you do even the slightest thing wrong, it shall go the wrong colour. Needless to say, any dunderhead whose potion is the wrong colour shall get instant detention."

The teenagers quickly got to work, following each instruction to the letter. Rumour had it that the last student to get a detention from Snape had been forced to cut Snape's hair. Ever since then, the student's work had been covered with grease that refused to be removed from the unfortunate student's fingers. Obviously, none of the other students were willing to share a similar fate.

At the end of the lesson, Harry was relieved to see that his potion, like almost everyone else's, was a light purple. The one exception was poor Neville. Snape was just approaching Neville's cauldron so he too could see that Neville's potion had turned...

"Orange, Longbottom?" Snape stared at the boy, one eye starting to twitch. "But it's supposed to be orange!"

Neville said something terribly cutting that showed off how intellectual he really was. Harry, however, was far too busy trying to keep the last frog in Ron's vial from escaping so he did not hear this comment so it cannot be recorded.

(Frogs are AMPHibians...try relating that to drugs... [insert 'amphetamines' cleverly disguised in a cough here])

Snape, meanwhile, collapsed in a gibbering wreck, no longer able to deal with this world with its upside-down values: Neville Longbottom (the author would like to point out that Neville has not transferred to Hufflepuff. The use of his last name was for clarification purposes only) succeeding in potions where Hermione Granger (same applies) had failed.

Harry watched in amazement as Snape was carted off to the hospital wing. "Well done, mate," he congratulated Neville, swinging an arm around his shoulders, "Got rid of Snape at last."

Neville looked pointedly at Harry's offending hand until it was removed before responding haughtily, "Yes. I am removing the unacceptable parts of this school one by one. Next to go shall be Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?!" shouted Harry in surprise.

"Dumbledore?" shouted everyone within hearing distance, wondering what had got into Harry.

And so it went on. The camera zooms out until we can see thousands of very confused people shouting Dumbledore's name...

Let's get back to Harry.

"Yes, Dumbledore. I blame his endearing personality combined with his unusual fondness for Muggle sweets for my weight problem. If it hadn't been for someone who is such a role model liking them, I would never have started eating them in such vast quantities. As was recently pointed out to me, fat presents serious health problems. I owe it to future generations to rid Hogwarts of this obesity inducer."

"How are you planning to do that?" asked Harry.

"I thought I'd sue him. Not that I'm in it for the money or anything. Although it shall be most pleasant to think of Dumbledore starving on the streets while I'm living it up in my French villa with Fleur."

Harry shook his head at Neville's dastardly plot. "It'll never work. Dumbledore shall never truly leave Hogwarts."

A few weeks later, Dumbledore had packed up all of his remaining belongings. It hadn't taken long; he's had to sell quite a bit in order to pay Neville. Before he went, he took Harry aside for some last words. Harry wasn't really paying attention because his beloved Myrtle had asked him to meet her in her bathroom. She had 'something to show him' apparently.

"Harry, you're on your own. Try not to screw it up," Dumbledore advised.

Harry continued to grin inanely, his eyes slowly glazing over.

Dumbledore muttered something about how they were all doomed and stormed off.

Harry ran off to meet his love.

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Ahem. And you were wondering what was so bad about Bernard's threat two chapters ago. I would like to blame the unbelievably long time it took to write this on my Spanish friend who came over on exchange. While she was here, it was obviously completely impossible to write anything, or even get on the internet at all. We were far too busy watching all the children's films in our house over and over again. (What? It was raining – what a surprise, rain in Devon – and although I did attempt to make her watch the Importance of Being Earnest, films like the Lion King were far easier for her to understand.) Anyway. I would like to blame the excessive amount of references in this chapter on her as well. Because I can. Heh heh heh.

Remember – REVIEW! Tell me to stop taking all those drugs etc etc. And tell me how many references you could find!!!!!

YAY!!!!!

...I am perfectly normal in every way...


	9. The Syltherin Common Room is Closed

Disclaimer: I own all the Harry Potter characters and setting and stuff...hmmm, I'm sure there should be a negative in there somewhere. I own all the Harry Potter characters and not setting and stuff?? No, still not right. Oh well.

The Slytherin Common Room

"Hey, Harry," Ron called as Harry skipped by. "You should try this stuff." He proffered a bad of what looked like Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

Harry accepted and approached Ron. It was always wise to eat something before going to see Myrtle – she always got so upset if his stomach rumbled as it reminded her that hers could not. However, when he reached inside the packet, he couldn't feel any beans, just some powder.

Shocked, he looked at the packet more closely and found that, as well as crushing Ron's beans, someone had mislabelled his packet! Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Cocaine? As far as he knew, there was no such thing.

(I know – more bad drug jokes. We should know better. Don't worry – this is the last one (I hope))

However, as we all do know, Harry's knowledge doesn't stretch very far. We can illustrate this by imagining all of Harry's characteristics as little fluffy balls with miniature legs and arms and big cartoon eyes. His Ego's the big red one in the middle that has Harry's Feminine Side and his Sensitivity on its arms. His Paranoia is the huge purple one, hiding in the corner, biting its fingernails, its eyes darting about, trying to identify some more prospective murderers. His Knowledge is the dull grey one, standing outside the group, a toupee on its head to try to cover its bald spot. It is the one that is being ignored by all the others [there is an effectively discordant bit in the music that resolves itself to a soft minor triad]. As the camera zooms up on his Knowledge, we see that it has blinkers clamped to its head, representing Harry's ignorance of anything but Myrtle.

[The music becomes deathly quiet]. Harry's Knowledge turns and starts to walk away, looking back only once to see if anyone has noticed its departure. The shot cuts back to the party, where Harry's Paranoia is accusing his Conscience of trying to poison it the previous night. His Ego is now making out with his Feminine Side, having ditched his Sensitivity, who is sitting on a stool, crying.

The shot cuts back to his Knowledge who, dispirited, takes off his toupee and drops it. [The camera follows the fall of the toupee in slow motion. A bass drum is hit just as it hits the ground. The camera stays focused on the toupee until all the dust settles, whereupon the shot changes to that of Harry's Knowledge walking morosely into the distance. Music fades out.]

Awwwww... Who else was crying? Come on – you can tell me! Don't you just love the corniness?

Ahem

As has just been established, Harry's Knowledge wasn't exactly complete, so the fact that HE doesn't know of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Cocaine doesn't mean anything. In fact, this product was quite famous as there had been a big legal battle when it first came out.

Upon its arrival in his local sweet shop, a concerned citizen took the matter first to the authorities and then to court.

That's right – false advertising.

The citizen argued that, as cocaine was snorted, it wasn't right to call it 'Every Flavour' as the flavours couldn't be tasted. Mr. Bott, for his defence, brought in a Muggle biologist, who told the jury that 'taste' and 'flavour' were two different things; 'taste' was detected on the tongue, while 'flavour' was detected by the nose.

The jury, having been told this, was so confused that they unanimously decided that Mr. Bott was not guilty of the charge. It was at this point that the Ministry of Magic remembered cocaine was illegal and tried to lock Mr. Bott away. This proved difficult as Bertie Bott turned out to be a marketing gimmick, a bit like Colonel Sanders.

Harry, who didn't know this, but did know that Myrtle was waiting for him, patted Ton on the shoulder sympathetically and told him that next time he should check the packet before he bought anything. Then he skipped off again.

When Harry entered the bathroom, he found Myrtle waiting for him, a piece of parchment in her hand. She proffered it to him.

"I found this," she said. "It must have fallen out of your pocket the last time we..." she blushed. "The last time we had..." she trailed off, embarrassed.

"You know," Harry reflected, "until I met you, I didn't realise people could do that with ghosts."

"Yes, well..." Myrtle blushed again. "It must have fallen out." She offered him the parchment again.

Harry took it, wondering why she was so embarrassed at admitting to having played twister. He looked at the parchment. Written on it, in block capitals, were the words, "IMPORTANT PARCHMENT ONLY TO BE READ BY SLYTHERINS WHICH DEFINITELY DOESN'T CONTAIN THE SCHEDULED TIME OF THE NEXT MEETING WITH VOLDEMORT"

"Well," said Myrtle after a long pause, "aren't you going to open it?" Harry looked at her, amazed.

"I would never have thought of that!" he said. He opened the parchment.

_All Death Eaters are invited to a rendezvous in the Slytherin Common Room of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This meeting will be to discuss the future of the Death Eaters – your children! For the first time, they will be able to meet with careers advisors who will help them to decide what role they want to play in the Death Eater organisation. The meeting is at 7:30 on the 17th June – don't be late!_

_Tapas and martinis will be available but you must provide your own potpourri._

_Répondez, s'il vous plaît_

_Lord Voldemort_

_(Squiggly signature)_

Harry gasped in shock. "You know what that means, don't you?"

"That Lord Voldemort will be in Hogwarts in approximately 8 minutes? That Dumbledore has gone so you will, once again, be left to face Voldemort alone?" Myrtle asked, her eyes shining.

"No!" Harry said, "It means that the Slytherins will be breaking school rules!"

"By consorting with the most evil wizard of all time? By planning to become Death Eaters?"

"No!" Harry shouted, outraged, "They will be drinking alcohol within school boundaries AND," he paused dramatically, "they will be bring in material that some students may be allergic to!"

"The potpourri?" Myrtle asked. "You're angry about the martinis and the potpourri?"

But Harry wasn't listening to her. "Come Myrtle! We must save the integrity of this school!" he shouted, before running out of the door.

Myrtle glided after him, mouthing "potpourri?" to herself every so often.

As they approached the Slytherin Common Room, it was almost silent, except for the sound of Harry's heavy breathing. No matter what being on the Quidditch team had done for the Creevey brothers' physique, it had not made Harry fit. After all, it's the broomstick that's doing all the exercise, not him. It may have influenced his ability to have children (think about it – width of broomstick and how he balances on it – that's a lot of pressure to put on a sensitive area) but his one true love is dead, so that doesn't really matter.

Harry collapsed on the floor for five minutes while he got his breath back. Then, he slowly eased his way up, trying to shake the cramps out of his legs. He walked over to the portrait hole.

"Ummmmmm, pureblood?" Harry tried, remembering the password from years ago. Seeing the look on the portraits face, he continued – "Death-to-all-mudbloods? I-love-the-Dark-Lord? Basilisks-are-for-life-not-just-for-Christmas?"

Suddenly, he heard a slow, contemptuous drawl – "Harry Potter."

Harry didn't need to turn around to know it was Draco Malfoy who spoke – the narrator had said it was a drawl – but he did anyway. "Myrtle?" he asked, identifying the person behind him. He paused – there was something wrong here. "That was a very good imitation of Malfoy," he tried. No, something still wasn't right.

"I'm over here," it was a hissed, faintly embarrassed drawl. "Turn 40 degrees to your left." Harry did so.

"Malfoy!" Harry said. This was more like it. Then he had a realisation – the element of surprise was lost – "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

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Hey!!!!! It's really unfair – back to school on Thursday... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Just so you know, to get some of the jokes in this fic, it would be a good idea to watch/read the following obsessively so you get all the references:

Harry Potter 1: Blaise Zabini is in there, as are phrases like, 'how very wrong he was' and 'orange, Longbottom?' Obviously all the others as well as this is a Harry Potter fic.

Finding Nemo: should watch this obsessively anyway (Pony boy? You know, for a clownfish, he's not that funny.) I was talking with my friends yesterday about the Shining and I said "here's Brucey!" and they all said, "no, it's 'here's Johnny!'" because they hadn't watched this film enough times

Pirates of the Caribbean: same applies. You know, I made a reference to this film while explaining one of Spinach's references – to the bit which goes "Elizabeth's safe, just like I promised; she's off to marry the Commodore, just like she promised, and you're about to die for her, just like you promised. So we're all men of our word, except for Elizabeth, who is, in fact, a woman."

The Emperor's New Groove: love this film. "I'll turn him into a flea, a harmless little flea, and then I'll but that flea in a box, and I'll put that box in another box, and when it arrives – AH HA HA HA HA – I'll smash it with a hammer! It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant I tell you; genius, I say! [pause] Or, to save on postage, I could just poison him with this!" There are a few references to this in Spinach's last chapter.

Beauty and the Beast: the best part of this film is Cogsworth's laughter. Watch it, and listen to his laughter. For example: "And as I always say, if it's not Baroque, don't fix it! Ah ha ha ha, ha ha." Or, "You're lady awaits. Oh ho ho." Spinach did a reference to this film in her last chapter as well, and challenged you people to find it and not one of you reviewed with an idea. Not many reviewed for that matter.

The Lion King: I know, sad but true. Do love Disney films. We even had a Mulan reference in this chapter – the potpourri bit.

Shrek 1 and 2: these are so great. You know the popping noise that donkey does? I was so tempted to do that during the exams...just resisted (well, except for once or twice...)

The Simpsons: probably referred to this somewhere. Watch this way too much.

Terry Pratchett books: love these. These are the originator of the need for five exclamation marks, for, as he puts it, this is "the sure sign of an insane mind."

The rest of it is just chemical imbalances in our brains...I think. PITY US!!!!!


	10. The Choices of Master Malfoy

Disclaimer: The characters and setting of Harry Potter are not ours. However, the eccentric spelling and punctuation and liberal attitude toward the G rating are...HANDS OFF!!!!!

The Choices of Master Malfoy

"NOOOOOOOOOOO..." Harry paused to take a breath, "...OOOOOOOOOOOOO..." He took another breath, which Malfoy utilised to speak.

"Harry!" he shouted. "SHUT UP!"

"...OOOOOOO..." was Harry's only response.

"I'm on your side!"

"...OOOOO... WHAT?!?!??!!??!" Harry exclaimed.

"I'm on your side."

Harry paused, his eyes filling with tears. "Does this mean...?" Then he flung his arms around Draco. "I love you too Draco; I always wanted to be friends but that nasty author just wouldn't let me!" He started to sob.

"Don't be an idiot!" Draco said, pushing Harry away. "I'm not on your side because I like you," he said, shuddering slightly, "I just don't want to b a Death Eater!" He paused and then added, "And don't cry on me – it might dissolve my hair wax." He shaped his hair back into place.

"But why?" Myrtle asked, intrigued, and keen to turn this fic into a nice angsty one.

"You read the letter," Draco said heavily. Myrtle nodded sympathetically. "The Dark Lord's new evil plan is to steal the penultimate pages of all the teen romances."

Harry gasped in shock. "But that's..." He was unable to find a word to express his horror.

"I know," said Draco. "I thought it would be all proper evil psychopath stuff, like mindlessly and brutally murdering thousands of defenceless Muggles."

"But stealing the penultimate pages of all the teen romances?" Harry asked, still unable to grasp the awful truth. "That's below the belt – that's not proper and gentlemanly evil psychopath stuff."

"Right," Draco said, unable to tear his eyes away from Harry, who was now sobbing for all the poor unfortunates who Voldemort's plan would affect. Eventually, he managed to turn to Myrtle. "Has he always been like this?"

Myrtle nodded before saying, in a disbelieving tone of voice, "He was angry about the potpourri."

They stood there in silence as they watched Harry list his 100 favourite teen romances - each series only counting as one entry, of course.

"One too many killing curses to the head, if you ask me," Draco said.

Then, Harry spoke, his voice quavering. "Did he at least leave the penultimate pages of the Babysitter's Club books?"

Draco shook his head – "I'm sorry, Harry," he said, sympathetically.

Harry narrowed his eyes and screamed, "That asshole's going down!" (A/N: I think our complete disregard for the rating only adds to this fic's charm)

Myrtle and Draco exchanged a long-suffering glance. There was a thud as Harry crashed into the portrait. Its occupant – a thick-set man in a black head, holding a scythe – started to cry.

"That's it!" he shouted, "I'm calling my lawyer! I want compensation! No-one respects portraits anymore!"

"Of course people respect you," Myrtle reassured him.

The man stopped crying and looked up at her, almost shyly – "Really?"

"Of course! Why, if you left tonight, none of the Slytherins would be able to enter their common room. Your role as official opener-and-shutter-of-the-portrait-hole is vital."

"And as a guard," he added.

"Yes, and your role as the guard," she reinforced.

The man blushed – "Gee, really?"

"Yes," Myrtle said. "Without you to open, shut and guard this portrait hole, the meeting tonight wouldn't be possible."

"I suppose you're right," the man said, straightening. Then he appeared to remember something. "And...what is the password?" He tried to wink unsuccessfully, as that would take more co-ordination than his brain could handle.

Myrtle looked blank. The man tried to wind again – tried being the operative word. Then, Draco said, after a long and strained sigh –

"Furbies rule." The portrait swung open. Myrtle looked quizzically at Draco. Harry barged straight in, with the immortal cry of 'The Babysitters' Club!'

"The Dark Lord had the password changed specially to be more fitting with his operation," Draco said bitterly. Myrtle made a sympathetic noise, before following Harry in, Draco close behind her.

"Harry Potter," a cold, high voice said. "I have been waiting so long to have you in my grasp!" There was a collective gasp from the onlookers.

A tall man with slicked back, brown hair and a self-important, false smile on his face, with perfect white teeth – you know, the kind that can only be achieved with a mouthful of porcelain crowns – stepped up. I imagine him looking rather similar to Troy McClure (Simpsons, people, keep up), but slightly less yellow.

"Hi, I'm Lord Voldemort's personal relations manager. I'd just like to clarify that 'in my grasp' was not meant in any paedophilic sense."

The gasp was let out in a collective sight. This gave it an odd, pre-rehearsed feel, almost as if... eyes dart around guiltily it wasn't real life! There, I said it.

"No!" Voldemort confirmed. "I meant placed in a seemingly impossible, yet, strangely easily escapable situation so that I could..." he paused dramatically, "make him complete comparative essays on the different techniques of war poetry."

Just then, Spinach came into the scene. "That sounds strangely familiar to the English test Bernard and I just had to do," she said suspiciously. Then, she turned and looked me – the narrator – straight in the eyes, which is rather unfair of her, as I had, up to this point, been quite successful in staying on the brink of existence. "You have been scarred by this, Bernard, scarred," she said, shaking her head sadly.

There was a shocked silence, followed by a cry of – "Mary Sue – kill it!" It came from Bernard, who used to narrate this fic; she had crossed the boundary into character-hood by going against two rules of narrator-ship – to not interfere in the plot and, more significantly, to be nameless. This is why she shall now be referred to as She-Who-Can-Now-Be-Named in hushed and fearful tones.

The group of Death Eaters willingly set out to obey Bernard's orders. After all, they were already dressed as a lynch mob with their black balaclavas and their robes emblazoned with those potent symbols of terror and evil – furbies, smoochies and, worst of all... involuntary shudder Barney. Interestingly, Spinach was unaffected by the sight of involuntary shudder Barney, as she denies his existence, in order to once more see the good in this world, and therefore, when faced with a depiction of said monstrosity, cannot see it.

"I can't be a Mary-Sue!" Spinach protested – "I'm not stunningly beautiful yet wonderfully nice and modest!"

"It's true!" Myrtle said, supporting Spinach. The traitor! She doesn't appear once in either of Spinach's chapters, and yet she's helping her! "I don't feel the urge to vomit every time I see her!" Myrtle continued, being the egg that she is...read scene 2, act 5 of Macbeth about six times and you might understand, possibly.

However, this did not stop the advance of the Death Eaters. "Screw this!" Spinach said, "I only came here to be condescending to Bernard." With these words, she disappeared, in other words, returned to the parallel universe generally known as reality.

With no Spinach to kill, the Death Eaters turned on She-Who-Can-Now-Be-Named, who was admittedly, just as much of a Mary-Sue as Spinach had been. She-Who-Can-Now-Be-Named tried to escape back to her post as narrator, but, unfortunately, the vacuum that she had created by becoming a character had been filled by me. She could not escape to reality as Spinach had done because Author-Bernard is in that reality and She-Who-Can-Now-Be-Named was simply a representation of Author-Bernard's personality who was set the task of making this fic understandable, which, as far as I can tell, she did a terrible job of, so it's a good thing, really, that she was made into a character, as it means someone more able can do the job. All of this means that there are now three versions of Bernard: Author-Bernard, She-Who-Can-Now-Be-Named and me, Narrator-Bernard.

"Damn it!" Narrator-Bernard, or should I say, ex-Narrator-Bernard, yelled, as she too appeared in the scene, having become a character by naming herself. The Death Eaters turned on her as well, delighted at the prospect of two victims, but then, they both disappeared.

This could be interpreted as the author finally realising that this chapter was meant to have a plot, but that would be a foolish exaggeration of both her organisation and responsibility. The real reason shall become apparent in the next chapter.

Voldemort shook his head. "_Disappearo!_" he said, pointing at the pictures of the furbies, smoochies and involuntary shudder Barney that adorned the Death Eaters' robes.

"Now, Voldemort, your Latin is almost as bad as Dumbledore's was in our third year! In fact, I think _Disappearo_ is worse than _Reducto Momentum_." Harry said, cheerfully.

"Die, impudent wretch!" Voldemort said, pointing his wand at Harry – "_Avada Kedavra!_" By the way, if you think Voldemort still sounds different from normal, that's just me being unable to remember how JK wrote him.

But the killing curse never reached Harry (DAMN!!!!!). Myrtle, her senses sharpened by love (awwwww), had dived in front of Harry, to save him from death. You'd think that this wouldn't help at all, being, as she is, a ghost, but it did. She managed to confuse reality, or what passed for it in Hogwarts, to such an extent that the spell killed Myrtle properly – so that she was no longer even a ghost – and forgot about Harry altogether.

"NOOOOO!!!!!" Harry screamed, falling to his knees. Unfortunately, as he was doing this, his glasses fell off and smashed as the hit the ground. This may seem unlikely, but his glasses fell off and smashed as they hit the ground. This may seem unlikely, but his glasses had committed suicide after their only equal in geekiness had been lost to this world forever. This may still seem unlikely, but it's not my fault because...because...BECAUSE YOU SMELL! (Tee hee hee!!)

Just then, Snape appeared. "Still in need of glasses, Potter?" he asked, disappointed, before disappearing again.

"Did you just see that as well?" Draco asked Harry, a little stunned. Harry, however, did not seem to be able to see anything without his glasses.

"Mwah hah hah hah hah!" Voldemort exclaimed. "Potter is finally mine!"

His PR guy popped up again – "To kill," he confirmed, before disappearing again.

Voldemort had raised his wand and managed to say "_Avada_" before Draco stopped him with a stunning series of jinxes, hexes, curses, counter-curses and other words, which neither my brain nor my thesaurus contains.

"You!" Voldemort yelled at Draco. "You treacherous coward! You could have been great, but now you will die!" He aimed a killing curse at Draco, who dived out of the way, saving himself.

Unfortunately, because of the properties of inertia, he knocked himself out. When he dived aside, his hair was forced to dive aside as well. Unfortunately, its mass is far greater than Draco's mass, due to the excessive amount of wax in it, so it, due to inertia, dived aside slower than Draco himself did, causing him to crash into it. This knocked him out because the particular brand of hair wax Draco uses is very solid, so crashing into his hair is rather like crashing into a brick wall.

"No-one to defend you now, Potter!" Voldemort said, triumphantly. Then, he appeared to remember something. He turned to his PR guy, who had randomly reappeared and said, bitterly, "It's not the conclusion yet!" The PR guy nodded and turned to the Death Eaters.

"Sorry, people," he said, "but there will be no killing of Harry Potter at this time. You shall have to wait till another death for your meal."

"Meal?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," PR guy said, "they're not called Death Eaters for nothing."

Harry was still confused. "So does that mean they eat the personification of death itself or do they somehow gain nutrition form the death that killing causes?"

The PR guy, who wasn't about to admit that he didn't know, tried the other tactic of adults when talking to minors – being patronising. "What a clever boy!" the PR guy said, "Have a sweet for being so clever!"

"My mum says...would probably say...not to take sweets from strangers," Harry replied, reverting to – no wait, continuing to stay at – the mental age of eight.

"I feel we're getting off topic," Voldemort said, glaring at them both, until the both looked at their feet in shame. Or, rather, PR guy looked at his feet and Harry squinted vaguely in the direction he thought his feet might be (no glasses, remember?)

Then, Voldemort's voice became very low and his breathing continued, disregarding the fact that he was speaking – "Harry, I am your father!"

There an awkward pause before Harry uncertainly said, "Darth Vader?" There was another pause. "Are you sure this isn't copyright infringement?"

"It's not Darth Vader; it's me, the Dark Lord!" Voldemort hissed. "And isn't this whole thing copyright infringement?"

"Good point," Harry said, before realising what he had just been told – "NOOOOOO!!!!!"

He does a lot of NOOOOOO!!!!!-ing in this chapter.

Voldemort laughed evilly, before trying to apparate away. Unfortunately, as Hermione could have told him in rather scathing tones – it's impossible to apparate in or out of Hogwarts grounds. (Did you notice that subtle hint that Hermione's back to normal?) This left Voldemort no other option than to slope off, trying to look dignified.

So Harry was left alone, aside from the Death Eaters – who saw no reason to let good tapas and martinis go to waste – and Draco – whose head was slowly getting stuck to the floor as his hair wax was a very strong adhesive if left to set. Aside from them, Harry was left alone, to ponder the important questions this chapter had raised. Would he ever see Myrtle again? Was Voldemort his father? And most importantly of all, would the penultimate pages of all his Babysitters' Club books still be there?

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I would like it to be known that we did consider the comments about the suitability of the rating of this fic and decided that, as the worst word we said was arse/ass and the sexual references we made would only be recognised by people who already knew about all that stuff (and therefore would have no chance of destroying the naïve outlook of the innocents who have no idea what we're talking about), we did not need to change it from G.

REVIEW YOU LAZY GITS!!!!!

(ok. Have to add the word 'git' now)

Oh yeah, and vote Kerry, or tell your parents to vote Kerry or whatever (applies to US readers only)


	11. Minus Myrtle

**Minus Myrtle**

Harry knelt in shock on the common room floor, oblivious to the Death Eaters around him casually discussing the 471 Dark-Lord-approved ways to kill Muggles and to the piteous, drawling pleas of his fellow student.

"Could somebody help me? Please? All I need is a diamond edged cutting utensil. Is that so much to ask?"

Nobody paid him any attention. The Death Eaters were arguing over whether Magic Muggle Massacre (™) #357 was 'Push a Muggle off of a high cliff using a nearby stone that you have transfigured into a long stick' OR 'Push a Muggle off of a high cliff using a nearby pebble that you have transfigured into a long stick.'

Those who had given up on the argument were bewailing the fact that in Modern MNC times, all senior Death Eating involved was paperwork.

Harry had collapsed to the floor, tears forming in his eyes. Draco couldn't quite figure out if this was grief or if Harry's eyes were simply watering from squinting in an attempt to focus for so long.

"I think I may have permanently injured my spine..." Draco drawled loudly. "I need immediate medical attention!"

There was no reaction.

"Stupid bloody Death Eaters," he drawled under his breath.

As one, everyone turned to look at Malfoy. (Except for Harry, who was already looking at him... Or, at least, he thought he was. Although 'Draco' later turned out to be a lampshade.)

"Young people of today," said one man disgustedly. "They have no respect for their fellow human beings."

The Death Eaters filed out of the common room, so hurt that the biggest act of sadism they managed was some half-hearted treading on Draco as they made their way out.

It was just Harry and Draco now. Two underage wizards who were poorly equipped against this unforeseen enemy – hair gel as an adhesive in association with suicidal glasses.

Draco settled down for a nice angsty night in which the former enemies would discover shocking and humanising truths about each other.

Thankfully, he was saved from this fate. It was actually only fifteen minutes before Hermione discovered them.

"There you are Harry! The whole of Gryffindor's been out searching for you! It's already 8pm, you know – WAY past your bedtime."

She performed a quick charm to repair Harry's glasses and a rather complex one that freed Draco without removing all of his hair.

Draco quickly rushed off to find the nearest mirror. Harry, however, wandered vaguely out of the common room, too choked up with emotion to speak. Hermione followed him silently and respectfully to the girls' toilets. Myrtle's toilets.

Harry couldn't bottle it up any longer.

"Oh, Hermione! She's gone! My One True Love has died...AGAIN... I shall never feel the same about anyone else. We were so close...like..."

"Zirconium and hafnium?" Hermione suggested.

Harry gave her a look of utter bewilderment.

"Zirconium and hafnium not only occur naturally together in ores, they are so chemically similar that it took over a century to distinguish between them. Don't you read?"

"Not that!" exclaimed Harry. "I already knew THAT..." He descended into silence for a moment as he tried to concentrate on glancing suspiciously at himself and then gave up and continued, "You actually sounded intelligent again! And you weren't talking about Goyle!"

Hermione looked slightly queasy. "Well, thankfully, Dumbledore popped in to see if he could scab a cup of tea from school funds and he realised what a state the school was in."

"That's right," Ron said, stepping out from behind a door at the moment it would give maximum dramatic effect. Before Harry could say, "What in Merlin's Beard are you doing in my girlfriend's toilet?!?" Ron continued the story. "Dumbledore came across me as I was on my drug high. He said, and I shall never forget his words, 'Mr. Weasly, what big pupils you have.' And he waved his wand and I was suddenly well enough to say 'All the better to...absorb lots of light with...' It was amazing. I told him that the whole school was messed up and he performed some incredibly complicated magic and the stability of the universe was restored."

Ah! thought Harry, for the benefit of the slower readers, So THAT'S why Voldemort had suddenly returned to his normal psychotic self and all of those miscellaneous Bernards had disappeared!

"We're so lucky that Dumbledore came back. I'm sure you realise what terrible danger we were in," said Hermione, confident that he didn't so she would have a chance to show off her intellectual prowess in front of Ron... I mean, in front of her friends...

However, her plan was thwarted as Harry felt, at this point, that he could put in something to the conversation. "Of course! I once knew someone whose guinea pig used to get very twitchy around potpourri. What's to say that that's a guinea-pig-specific complaint?!"

Ron patted him sympathetically on the shoulder while Hermione continued as if he hadn't said anything.

"Voldemort was trying to give us, and all of your other friends, a potion that would give us the opposite personalities. He thought that the further instability in your life would be enough to send you over the edge. He would have succeeded if it hadn't been for Myrtle.

Harry let out a little sob. There was another silence. At first, he thought it was to let him compose himself. He soon realised that Hermione's pointed glare was directed at him. He gave in.

"Wow, Hermione. How did you figure that out," he said monotonously.

"Well," she said, excited, "it was at the Hog's Head that I realised..."

Harry did try very hard to be interested but it was well past his bedtime and it had been a long day. His listening consisted of a lot of tired blinking and a very poor recollection of what had just been said. This is rather fortunate as we missed out most of the events that Hermione used to solve the mystery. However, Hermione's curious tooth brushing action needed to be explained, so he caught the last bit.

"...so it was obvious that's what he wanted to do."

"However, he didn't count on Winky being a rogue element. He thought she was just a good little house elf who does what she's told. I knew that she has a rebellious streak in her because after cleaning the toilets one day, she mixed up Lavender's and my toothpaste. From there, the only possible conclusion that could be drawn is that Winky would give Voldemort some potion so his Dark Scheme would turn into something more frivolous, as it did."

Harry didn't know what 'frivolous' meant, but he assumed it meant 'gut-wrenchingly evil.'

"If it was all so obvious, why didn't Dumbledore realise?" asked Ron, right on time. It was almost as if he was reading from (a rather poorly written) script that was trying to explain all of the convoluted 'logic' behind what had happened that year.

Almost.

some of Harry's potion is forced down reader's throat

It was at this point that Dumbledore himself stepped dramatically out of the nearest cubicle. "Harry," he said gravely, "I'm afraid I have something to confess."

Harry tried to look serious, but it was getting increasingly difficult not to let out a yawn.

Aren't long passages of explanation dull?

Dumbledore continued, unaware of Harry's thoughts. "I haven't been very involved in the fight against evil this year because I've been fighting for a cause that is far more worthwhile... The fight to renew my contract with the company that makes Sherbert Lemons!"

He paused dramatically, and Harry belatedly realised that he should have gasped in shock.

"That's right Harry," said Dumbledore solemnly. "The reason I like Sherbert Lemons so much is I'm paid to advertise them."

Harry gave another gasp, just in case.

"So you really were talking about Sherbert Lemons with the Fat...Horizontally Over-Endowed...Lady," interrupted Hermione, anxious to show how well thought out this fic is.

"Well done, Miss Granger. The Sherbert Lemon money is vital for our finances, so I felt the need to discuss the problem with a miscellaneous painting.

"Vital?" queried Ron, wishing that some of what he said in this chapter would sound like actual dialogue.

"Mr. Weasly. No less that seven children from your family have attended Hogwarts – the best wizarding school in the country – despite your apparently non-existent affluence. The reason you can do this is that most of our funding comes from Sherbert Lemons."

The trio paused in thought.

"So Goyle is paying for our education? Because he eats so many sweets?" Ron asked hopefully.

"Indirectly, I suppose."

There was another pause as Ron tried to fix this feeling of revenge in his mind forever.

Dumbledore left them to their little victory.

It was as they were walking up the stairs to the common room that Harry remembered his problems, which had been conveniently forgotten throughout the explanations to make them over more quickly.

Well, Myrtle couldn't be helped, he supposed. She died, properly this time, brave, noble and completely out-of-character. For her sake, Harry would try to be out-of-character as well by not being such a moody git.

The other problem was less easily solved, though.

"Hermione, Ron," he whispered, beckoning them towards him, despite the fact that the trio had been walking quite close together on an otherwise deserted staircase.

"Voldemort told me...he said I was his son." Harry bit his lip anxiously to show that he was really just a boy and definitely no the son of a dark wizard who spent most of his time trying to kill him.

Fortunately, Hermione agreed with him. "Don't be silly, Harry! Voldemort can't be your dad!"

"Why not?" asked Harry, waiting for her to talk of his bravery and inner nobility that meant that there was no way he could be the cunning and underhand heir of Slytherin.

Yeah, right.

"Harry, haven't you noticed his unnaturally high voice? I know how it happened. It's mentioned in _Hogwarts: A History_. _Chapter 27: Past Prefects and their Unfortunate Accidents._ Terrible thing. Though he does deserve it."

"WHAT?!?" 

"Harry, Lord Voldemort's a eunuch."

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AN' A THUMPIN' GOOD 'UN!!!!!

This is our penultimate but one chapter! SOB! (shut up with your treacherous cries of relief!!!) So we thought we'd do something INTERACTIVE!!!!! OOOOOHHHHH!!!!! awe (AWWWW!!!!! ...that's AWE not AWWW!!!)

The competition is this: answer a simple question on our fic and you will win your very own....dramatic music...highly coveted...drum roll GUEST APPEARANCE IN OUR NEXT FIC!

Yeah! We're writing another one and forcing it onto you! YAY!!!!

The simple question is...

What links the chapter titles of our fic?

Find out... well... depends on who gets it and how soon.

Until next time!


	12. The Last Insult

Disclaimer: No, the cow still hasn't given us the rights to Harry Potter...and I really was expecting her too...

The author note bit is up here this week. Well done to soymaid for winning the competition – the chapter names are indeed modified Lord of the Rings ones. She even gave us an intelligent reason for doing so – "a subtle jab at what many consider to be Rowling's overly liberal borrowing from Tolkien's works." Oh, yeah, I feel clever. As long as you ppl keep thinking that rather than that it's because of our over attachment to the title 'a shortcut to mushrooms'...

p.s. VOTE KERRY

The Last Insult

A few weeks passed in quiet study and hard work. An aura of peace had finally descended onto Hogwarts, almost as if Harry Potter wasn't even there. Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief before going off to get a marketing contract with smarties – the only commercial food product still to use crushed beetles in its red colorant.

Yum.

Then, just as he finished the last punctuation mark after the last word of his last NEWT, Harry realised something. This could tell us two things:

The author is utilising that well known plot cliché, giving all the main characters good grades in their exams.

Harry really is that slow

(You are free to choose, but we are inclined to think that it is a mixture of the two)

"Voldemort insulted my mother's honour!" he yelled before running out of the exam room.

"No talking in exams," mumbled the invigilator sleepily, before slumping and resuming his nap.

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other. "Is this where we run after him and then tag along to his fight to show our strong bonds of friendship before disappearing/being somehow incapacitated so that he can face You-know-who alone?" Ron asked.

"Yes," said Hermione. She looked longingly at her exam paper and then at the clock, which showed that there was still fifteen minutes of exam time left. "I just hope I've written enough."

Ron glanced at the pile of paper, covered in her neat writing that was sitting on Hermione's desk. "I'm sure 60 pages is enough, Hermione – I wrote three and your writing's smaller than mine and you wrote in the margins and you didn't use double line spacing."

Hermione seemed to be convinced, because she started to walk out of the exam room with him. As they were nearing the door, she whispered, "Don't exaggerate Ron – I only wrote 57 pages."

"I said no talking!" the invigilator yelled. Then he noticed Ron and Hermione standing by the doorway. "Going somewhere TOGETHER, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley?" he asked, winking in a rather exaggerated manner.

"Uh, yes, about that...um..." Hermione said, in what must have been her least lucid sentence, ever.

"Don't worry, kids, you carry on," he said, chuckling. "You have no idea how long us teachers have been waiting for there to be some real action, if you get my meaning." He started winking again.

"Is there something wrong with your eye, Professor?" Ron asked, concerned.

Hermione, with a resigned look on her face, dragged Ron out of the exam room and into the corridor. "Ron," she said, "it's one of _those_ fics."

"Ah," he said, comprehension finally dawning, "um... I'd never noticed how, uh, brown your eyes are before, Hermione."

"That was pathetic," Hermione said.

"And I think brown is really...appealing?" he tried. Hermione rolled her eyes. "What?" he demanded, "I don't even know if you're allowed to say 'sexy' in a G-rated fic."

Just then, the author rushed in to defend her precious G-rating. "Honestly, people, the lewd-teacher-thing was just a joke – I didn't expect you to take him seriously! You think I...?" She shook her head in disgust. "No. I do plan for you to marry, but the reader will have to assume that the next huge generation of the Weasley family were made in a far away land and carried to you by storks." Then she disappeared.

Hermione and Ron were staring at the author (or rather, where the author had been until a few seconds ago) with shell-shocked expressions on their faces. There was a long silence, finally broken by Ron –

"Storks, huh? My mum told me it was a phoenix that carried me; and when it burst into flames, dropping me safely into my mother's arms, my hair caught fire, and it has stayed fiery red to this day."

Hermione wordlessly handed him a copy of _Basic Genetics – An Idiot's Guide_.

Ron accepted the book without looking at it – he was too busy reminiscing. "Strange," he mused, "you'd have thought it would have scarred."

Hermione got another book – _The Birds and the Bees Explained_ – and handed this to him as well. (A/N: I love how this being a parody means I don't have to explain anything – where she got the books for example)

"It's too late to go after Harry," she said, soothingly. "Why don't you just go to your room and read those books – you may be a little surprised. If there's anything you don't understand, I'll explain it to you." She thought about the rating – "but NO demonstrations."

Harry was angry. Very angry. As we all now, insulting friends, killing girlfriends and even several attempts on his own life are all forgivable offences – but insulting his parents...that is too grave a sin. In fact, if it wasn't for his existence, he'd probably say that his mother was too pure and his father too gentlemanly for that kind of thing.

"Voldemort!" Harry shouted, having somehow found him in record time. (A/N: see above)

Voldemort hurriedly scraped his face mask off (what – you think you could get to 70 and have as wrinkle-free a face as he does without the aid of beauty products?)

"So you managed to find me!" he said, but the cold and piercing voice thing really doesn't work directly after your victim has seen you with cucumbers over your eyes.

After Harry had finished his five minute fit of hysterics, he stood up straight, breathed deeply a few times and then looked Voldemort straight in the eyes.

"You insulted my mother's honour," Harry said coolly, "when you lied about being by father, and for that, I can never forgive you." All teenage girls who fancy Daniel Radcliffe (are they mad??????) swoon at the brilliance of his acting and live in hope that one day, he will gaze into their eyes and say, in the same cool tones, those ever-romantic words – "STOP STALKING ME!"

"So killing both your parents was ok, but pretending to have slept with on isn't?" Voldemort asked. Harry nodded solemnly. "You're unhinged," Voldemort said, in what may have actually been sympathy shock, horror, I know "It would be kinder to just fulfil the prophecy and kill you."

"Not so fast, Voldemort!" Harry said.

"Would it kill you to say 'master' or 'o feared one' or something along those lines?" Voldemort asked, but his pleas went unnoticed.

"The prophecy doesn't specify that I am the one who will die!"

"Now I'm scared," Voldemort said sarcastically. "Although you've never died, Potter, it's always been through fluke or through Dumbledore coming to rescue you. You really believe that I'm going to die – me, the most powerful wizard of all time – because of a fluke? You are unhinged." Harry may have actually listened to this, but he still remained as confident as before, so it seems unlikely.

"But now I have a secret weapon..." he paused dramatically, using the silence to bring said weapon out from behind his back – "A bucket of soapy water!"

There was a long pause. Finally, Voldemort, who had never seen the Wizard of Oz, asked, "And that's supposed to do what, exactly?"

"When I throw this over you," Harry said, "you will melt."

"And the scientific basis for this theory is..." Voldemort prompted.

"You are so intrinsically evil that when you come into contact with something as good and pure as soap, your cells will self-destruct," Harry explained, his hand clutched to his chest, a far-away expression on his face and his gaze fixed on something in the middle distance.

"Soap?" said Voldemort, in disbelief. "You reckon soap could kill me?" Voldemort shook his head. "Over the years, as your evil nemesis, I like to think we've developed an understanding – yes, even a bond (although NOT to the extent some fics put it). Therefore I am hurt and confused why you think soap could kill me."

Harry still had the same defiant, yet noble, expression on his face, which leads me to believe that he has hearing difficulties. Either that or, due to some serious psychological issues, he cannot hear criticism. Inclined towards the latter, myself.

Voldemort gave up on trying to talk to Harry. Instead, he turned to a nearby Death Eater. "What am I doing wrong? I killed his parents and his girlfriend; I've terrorised him throughout his entire school career and yet he still seems unafraid of me."

The Death Eater wasn't sure what to say. He didn't usually receive more complex instructions than 'kill' or 'torture', yet now he was being asked to explain Harry Potter's psyche – a task which even the most brilliant psychologist in the world would find difficult.

"This is the end, Voldemort," Harry said, having apparently decided that he wanted to be in the limelight again. I mean, fair enough, the books are all called _Harry Potter and the Something or Other_.

"Oh please, Harry," Voldemort said sarcastically, "anything but this dreadful fate which now awaits me. Forgive my evil deeds." This confused the Death Eater even more; he'd never heard the Dark Lord say anything like that before.

"Tom! You don't know how long I've been waiting to hear those words," Harry said, weeping with joy. He threw the bucket to one side, spilling soapy water everywhere.

"Someone, just kill me now and spare me the sentimentality!" Voldemort yelled.

The Death Eater beside him gave a huge sigh of relief – finally, something he knew how to do. _"Avada Kedavra!"_

Harry stared at Voldemort's corpse lying on the floor and then at the Death Eater who had killed him. "Now that," Harry said, "was a fluke."

Suddenly Hermione appeared – "Wow, Harry, you defeated Voldemort." She gave him a hug, in the strictly platonic sense.

"I know Hermione – I'm just so happy!" Harry said, and was awarded an Oscar for the most insincere sounding dialogue ever. "But where is Ron?" Harry asked, trying to win the coveted prize a second time.

"Reading," Hermione said gravely. "It's a tough decision to make, but I though it was about time Ron learned the facts of life."

Harry let out a wistful sigh for the lost innocence of Ron's mind, which now would be filled with thoughts such as 'Why on earth is that called the birds and the bees?' (A/N: If anyone knows this, include it in your review)

They stood in silence for a minute. Then Hermione said, uncomfortably, "Harry, I need to talk to you..." she turned to the Death Eaters and said, pointedly, "Alone." The Death Eaters started to shuffle out. "Dumbledore is waiting outside to take you to prison," she called out after them.

"Now, Harry," she turned back to Harry, "now that Voldemort's gone, there isn't really any point in your continuing existence." She paused, groping for the most tactful words and missing them completely – "It would make a much more dramatic end if you...you know...kick the bucket."

Harry, though this seemed a strange request, did so.

"Um, Harry," she said, kindly, "I meant the metaphorical-euphemism-for-death bucket." She watched the bucket roll along, leaving a trail of soap suds after it – "Not the literal-just-had-soapy-water-in-it bucket."

"Oh!" Harry said, "Why didn't you just say?" He promptly collapsed, dying. She levitated him and then took him up to the Hospital Wing, where they were joined by Ron and all the other people who were of even minor significance to Harry.

"Hermione," he croaked, "there is something I need to know..."

"Anything, Harry," Hermione cried, tearful.

"In chapter 8, why did Snape keep us waiting outside his classroom?" Harry asked, his voice cracking.

"Oh, Harry, he was putting lard in his hair so that it stayed at optimum greasiness."

Harry's dying words were so quiet that they were barely audible – "Slimy git!"

There was a minute's silence, after which Dumbledore intoned in a rich and sonorous voice, "And thus, Harry Potter, saviour of our time, dies."


	13. The Multicoloured Haven

**The Multicoloured Haven**

Harry woke up and found he was in another world, more brightly coloured than ours because it had not been worn down by the troubles of life.

"Mum! Dad!" he shouted, as he spotted two people who he could never remember seeing before but vaguely realised that these should be the first words out of his mouth.

"Harry!" they shouted, sounding almost as if they were happy to see him. (Freaks.)

"Hey, Harry," came a voice from behind him. He spun around to find Sirius waiting there, arms outstretched for a hug. He didn't get one because Harry had eyes for only one person: the girl hiding nervously behind Sirius, gloriously in full colour.

"Myrtle!" he cried, and ran to her, almost crying with joy. (Although Harry, being Harry, tended to cry at the end of rubbishy teen films when the couple kissed. He _has_ to get all that emotion he's bottling up out somehow.)

It was as he and Myrtle were in each other's joyous embrace, surrounded by his parents and godfather, all three looking rather miffed that he was ignoring them, that he recognised (though he's never met them) the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts and all those other people Voldemort killed that aren't easily available for copying out of the first book.

"So I really am dead," he said, just to clear that matter up for people who think that the death scene wasn't very satisfactory.

Harry was, in case you hadn't guessed, in the Multicoloured Haven. The place where all good witches and wizards go when they die.

And so it was that Harry discovered that death isn't really an obstacle to living a full and exciting life, except without the living part. Surrounded by his family and reunited with his One True Love, Harry was actually much happier, especially as he didn't have to worry about stupid life problems like saving the world and tax returns.

Hermione and Ron, meanwhile, did have to go through all that. However, they soon figured out that they would make millions by writing Harry's biography and did so. From this money, they lived a life of leisure, and were very happily married apart from the almost constant argument.

Harry, whose life had always been dictated by the prophecies of Professor Trelawney, went on to fulfil even the most unlikely. He ...existed... to a ripe old age, became the spectral Minister for Magic and had twelve ghostly children.

And it was all delightfully corny...

THE END

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SOB! This really is The End! Well, its been a long and arduous journey and has killed many brain cells along the way. But wasn't it FUN?!? (just say yes...hint hint – review – hint hint...)

Look out for our next, entirely sensible of course, story, HP and the Half Blood Prince (my goodness! Wherever did we get THAT title from?) which should be much longer (STOP THAT GROANING AT ONCE!) but may no be up for a while as I, Spinach, am writing the first chapter.

We love all your reviews and thanks loads and all that other corny stuff which I simply MUST put in bc this is the mandatory corny end chapter...

FAREWELL DEAR REVIEWERS and also bye to all those scummy readers who enjoy (hopefully) all our hard work and then can't be bothered to tell us about it (gosh, im really getting good at these subtle hints, aren't i?)

And all those other goodbye things!


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